Shadow of Israphel Retold
by O.J van der Beek
Summary: A series that is based around the popular internet series by the Yogscast: The Shadow Of Israphel.
1. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 1

Prolog:

It was a time long ago, in a world since lost from the records of our own, where magic and mythical creatures where not things of imagination, but a part of every day life where today's impossibilities were bent and broken like mere twigs. It was in this time and place when the greatest adventure of our time and theirs took place. It began, as many things often do, with a few unsuspecting and unlikely companions, beginning namely with Xephos and Honeydew. Honeydew, a tall dwarf of Dwergholme, with his friend and companion Xephos, a strange man whom had been chanced upon by Honeydew after he had fallen from the sky into the City of Dwergholm, his memories of what occurred beforehand lost during the fall, arrived on the shore of an undiscovered continent in a sea of ice after traveling for months across the deserts outside Dwergholm towards a fabled land that wasn't held in the grip of heat. After they'd traveled for months, across mountain, plains and frozen sea, they came to a shore covered in tall pines and that in turn were covered in thick white snow. It was here in the island's snowy hills that the two friends decided to build a house inside a large cave that they found near the beach, naming it the "Yogcave","Yog" being the dwarven word for strong. After spending many months renovating and living in the cave, they delved into the deepest regions of the earth and struck obsidian.

Through the process of carving out great beams of the glassy-rock and erecting them in an another nearby cave they created a huge black rectangular frame, and after setting alight to the bottom of the frame, a doorway of purple light opened to the Nether, a hellish nightmare region where magma ran like water.

But before they could enter the Portal, as they returned to their Yogcave to gather supplies to set forth into the Nether, they were ambushed by a gaunt figure, undefinable from a distance save his white skin and dark robes. This figure shot down at them with a rain of arrows through the unfinished ceiling of a tower that Xephos and Honeydew were building over a gaping hole in the Yogcave roof. After many harrowing attacks and finding unexplainable structures built around their house's area, they received a note from the assailant, as well as a bomb that blew out the back entrance to the Yogcave. But from the note they could gather his name: Israphel.

They waited until their attacker returned, and rushed after Israphel as he retreated. They soon lost him, but he had led them on to a strange road out in the middle of the tundra.

Since Israphel was lost, they saw no alternative than to follow the road, heading out towards the north. The road eventually led them to the edge of the tundra and ran through the shade of two stands of trees planted either side of the road, when the trees ended, they found themselves at the gate to a small town, an old man was standing outside.

His name was Old Peculier, and the town named Terrorvale. Peculier led them into his inn and served them a tankard of fermented milk. Xephos and Honeydew, still reeling from the fact that there had been a town so close to the Yogcave, when they had long held the belief that they were the only ones on the island, the two asked if there was any tasks that people needed assistance with around the town, where Old Peculier advised that they should go and see the blacksmith.

Peculier led them to the smithy, where to their surprise, a young woman with hair like spun gold was hammering out a blade on the anvil. Peculier introduced them to her, but not without a great deal of red coming to his cheeks, her name being Daisy Dukes. Honeydew immediately began to shamelessly flirt with her, and Xephos had to speak up in order to get back to the objective. Daisy told them that she needed some diamonds from the local mine, but she would not go in herself, due to it being infested with giant spiders. Peculier led them to the mine with Daisy in tow, where Xephos and Honeydew descended down into the depths, fighting off spiders in the torchlight, until they reached a cavern where the wall was covered in blue diamonds. Using a borrowed pickaxe, Honeydew pried fifteen choice diamonds the size of a fist out of the wall.

The two returned to the surface, and, after promptly dispatching a spider that had followed them out and terrified Daisy, gave her the diamonds. Daisy returned to her forge to make the armor, and Peculier led them to a small chapel named "Saint Creepers", where they were introduced to Reverend John.

John told them that his house on a hill at the fringes of Terrorvale had been recently overrun by the undead, and he needed to have his bible retrieved. He asked Honeydew and Xephos to do this for him, a quest which they accepted. Peculier led them to a sad little house on a hill, where they entered and discovered a hole in the floorboards, they lowered themselves through the hole and found themselves in a huge cave system. After fighting off a swarm of undead, and not finding the bible, they returned to the surface, where Old Peculier mumbled that the Reverend had not been the same since his son Israphel was killed.

Shocked by this revelation, Xephos, Honeydew and Peculier went to find Reverend John, who was in the Churches crypt, standing over a sepulcher. When Xephos told him that they did no find the bible, John flew into a fit of rage attacking Xephos yelling that he was promised that he would not see them again. John was swiftly killed by Honeydew, but once they looked up they saw that the grave that John was standing over had a name carved into the base, that name was Israphel.

Honeydew convinced Xephos to lead Peculier outside whilst he burnt the wooden coffin as in hope that it would combat Israphel. Peculier voiced his concerns that he had not seen Daisy around for hours, but his mind turned to other matters when he smelt smoke coming from the crypt. Xephos followed Peculier down the stairs to where Honeydew was standing next to Israphel's burning coffin (and another that he'd accidentally burnt). Before Peculier could say anything, the bottom of the brunt coffin fell away revealing an open hatch beneath.

After returning to the surface to briefly look for Daisy in her forge, where she was absent, but had left behind a pair of armored greaves and a chestplate, which Xephos and Honeydew split between themselves, Xephos taking the chestplate, the three lowered themselves into the hole which soon proved to be a tunnel. They started along the dark corridor when sudden they heard Daisy screaming somewhere down the tunnel. They raced along it until the found themselves on a terrace at the top of an enormous cavern, and in the center, surrounded by a moat of lava was a stone fortress with the white figure of Israphel standing atop a parapet, firing arrows at them.

The three raced down a narrow stairway carved from the stone wall until they reached the floor. They ran across the stony ground until they reached the gate of the castle, where the portcullis was drawn up and and enormous apparently sewn together zombie attacked them with a stone headed axe. After kiting it around for precious minutes, Peculier, using his old sword, fought it back and kicked it into the moat, where it seethed and burst in the liquid fire.

They then entered the castle, where they searched for the roof access, when they found their way up, they were assaulted by another of Israphel's minions, a creeper, a creature that could exploded at will, but walked on two legs and had arms. The creature exploded once, but with a far larger explosion than any creepers, fortunately, the heroes were not hurt, and searched the rest of the roof for Israphel. Xephos eventually found a wide, yawning tunnel mouth where the castle joined to the back of the cavern.

After looting the castle for equipment like arrows and torches, they set off down the tunnel that eventually narrowed down so that they could only move in single file. After hours of running along the tunnel, Peculier admitted that he was going to propose to Daisy, making Honeydew feel very awkward. After a few more hours of running along the winding tunnel, Peculier collapsed, forcing them to rest.

At last, Peculier had recovered, and with a dozen fresh torches, they continued along the constant up and down of the tunnel, until they reached the light of day again, but not where they expected.

The tunnel led around to the back entrance of the Cave of Terror where Honeydew and Xephos had built the Nether Portal. It only took them a second to figure out that Israphel had led Daisy through, but when they attempted to follow after him, they ended up running right through the portal. Israphel had sealed the portal, and not a moment later, Xephos and Honeydew collapsed onto the floor, when they awoke, they found that the two of them had been spirited away to a tiny desert island, with only one tree and no sight of land.

During the months that followed, the two managed to scratch out an existence underground, with a tree farm above them they'd made from off-cuts of the first tree, and a large mine that they had dug out beneath them. In said mine, Xephos and Honeydew encountered something that was quite amiss but never the less useful. Far beneath the surface of the island, near the layer of impenetrable bedrock was a chamber sealed by two iron doors labeled: "The Curator's Lost Treasure."

Xephos and Honeydew were at odds to what this was doing here and who the curator was, but it created both a sense of hope, due to the fact that this meant that they were not the first people to be on the island, and also a sense of dread, due to the fact that they were unsure wether the Curator had gotten off alive, or had become one of the dead that haunt the night. The chest contained many exotic rocks, dynamite, pumpkins that had been somehow preserved for eons, armor, a Golden Apple, and a green record along with much other miscellaneous objects.

Upon arriving back on the surface of the island, the heroes were greeted by an unexpected surprise. On the shore of the Survival Island, a small airship had docked on the beach, and climbing out of the hull of the ship was none other than Old Peculier, accompanied by a big man in blue aviators clothing, whom Peculier called Skylord Lysander.

Peculier said that an airship that Honeydew and Xephos had seen months ago had reported them at a place called Mistral City to Lysander, whom Peculier was staying with while trying to figure out where the two had gone. Peculier then told of how he'd convinced Lysander to fly to area that the other airship had described in his own one, which they had not packed enough fuel for, so they would be needing coal in order to get them off the island. Luckily, Honeydew had a stash of coal in their "house", but it was not quite enough, so Xephos had to make a run down into the mine and obtain some more.

When they returned and presented the coal to Lysander, he led them aboard the airship to refuel it, and told Xephos and Honeydew to bring only what they needed the most, and throw the rest over board for ballast. They proceeded to throw over the majority of the treasure that they had obtained, save only the most vital things, which they stored in the airship, called the Celaeno's lockbox.

After a few long minutes the airships primitive engine powered up and the airship lifted into the sky, taking it's passengers onwards to exact their revenge and stop the Shadow from spreading.

The Celaeno cut through the early morning mist like an assassins blade, propelled through the thick air by the two pectoral sails at the port and starboard of the ship, and held aloft in the sky by a huge envelope, a balloon suspended from the crisscrossed rigging of the airship. Honeydew, a Dwarf, but as tall as a human, and twice as so by heart, stood at the prow of the lithe sky ship, staring into the distance, searching for any sign of land with his dark, kind eyes. on the small deck behind him was his best friend and loyal companion, the mysterious Xephos, clothed in a fine armored chest-plate and black trousers. They say that he fell from the skies many a year ago, and was chanced upon by the Dwarf, Honeydew. The two have been inseparable since. At the rear of the ship was the main cabin, and inside sat the weak Old Peculier, an old man whom the heroes had chanced upon in their journeys. He had fallen ill a third of the way through the journey on the Celaeno, and now hung like a decrepit skeleton in the glamourous chamber. At the wheel of the graceful ship stood Skylord Lysander, tall, dressed in blue with gilded sky goggles clamped upon his weathered features.

Honeydew thoughtfully scratched his long ginger beard, running down along his bare chest, as he gazed into the fog. He squinted into the distance. The fog appeared to be getting darker, and could he taste... smoke?

Suddenly the Celaeno gave a lurch. The gas filled envelope above the sky ship bounced to and fro as the ship shuddered again.

"What was that?" said the weak, hoarse voice of Old Peculiar inside the cabin.

"Smoke!" responded the rich voice of Lysander. "It's slogging the mechanics of the ship!"

Suddenly the Celaeno went into a steep, and barely controllable dive.

"We're going down! Hold on to something!" yelled Xephos, as he clutched the ship's railings.

Lysander wrestled with the ships wheel, struggling to gain control. The Celaeno slowly came out of its dive. Honeydew was screaming in his deep, dwarven voice:

"Oooooh! Notch above! Pull out Skylord!"

Suddenly, they emerged beneath the layer of black smog, and the travelers saw before them a snowy landscape. Snow lay like powder upon the rugged landscape and the defiant trees, Xephos stared at it as he realised where they were. They were but a mile from their home; the Yogcave.

As the Celaeno hurtled onward at a "controlled" dive, now beginning to angle upwards, the white landscape screamed past.

"Honeydew!" shouted Xephos up to the Dwarf on the prow, who was nervously grasping the ship's balustrade. "Look where we are!"

The Dwarf peered over the rim of the ship, and realisation dawned on his features.

"We're not but a stones throw away from the Yogcave!" replied Honeydew. He looked ahead of the ship and pointed below. "Look, friend!" he gasped "It's Pig Island!"

Far below the ship, there was a tiny clump of land, floating in midair just off a small hill, it was the tiny, airborne, Island of the Pigs, suspended in midair. The companions had discovered it months ago when they set out from the Yogcave to find food, and slaughtered the majority of it's inhabitants. However, by some apparently magical means, the Island seemed to always be full of pigs, now however it was not.

"Xephos, where have the pigs gone?" asked Honeydew as the island quickly disappeared from view.

Xephos peered over the other side as the ship gave another lurch and started diving again.

"No Pigs?" said Xephos as he slowly started towards Lysander and the wheel. "This doesn't bode well. Lysander! Do you need aid?"

The Skylord, who had been struggling with the controls, nodded his, now red, sweaty face. He was too exaughisted to speak.

Honeydew maintained his iron-like grip upon the iron balustrade as his friend slowly made his way across the ever-rocking deck of the ship, narrowly avoiding cargo that was rolling across it. Just as Xephos got to the stairway that went up the cabin and led to the struggling Skylord, the cabin door swung open.

Old Peculiar was bracing himself in the doorway on wobbly knees, his travel-stained leather jerkin flapping in the wind.

"What's happening!" croaked Peculier, his heavily stubbled chin shaking.

"We are falling, Peculier!" yelled Xephos "Get back inside!"

Peculiar got to his hands and knees and began to crawl over books and other trinkets strewn across the ground, and back to the small bed.

Xephos continued to climb the steep stairs, to help Lysander control the ship. After what seemed to be an age, he reached the top, and began to steadily crawl across the pivoting deck towards the Skylord, who remarkably was still holding onto the wheel, and even more incredibly, was still standing.

Xephos eventually made it to the Celaeno's wheel, and as the ship continued to rock, he carefully got to his feet, and stood beside Lysander to assist him with the wheel.

Suddenly, Honeydew cried out: "It's The Pyramid!"

Xephos looked ahead of him through squinted eyes, and saw a stoney triangle in the distance on an island in a sea of ice. He knew that the Yogcave was in between the Pig Island and The Pyramid.

He took the chance of looking over his shoulder to catch a glance of his old home, sitting snug beneath an ancient mountain. Unfortunately, as he did so, the ship's primitive engine gave it's mightiest buck yet, and Xephos being distracted, and Lysander being so tired, they were thrown to the side. Xephos stopped at the railing, but Lysander tumbled over the edge. At the very last moment, Xephos reached out and grabbed Lysander's boot.

As Xephos hauled him back onto the Celaeno, the ship's wheel spun out towards the icy ocean to the left. The Celaeno violently tilted towards the sea, and below the deck in the cabin Peculiar screamed as it did so.

Suddenly there was another splutter. The ship tilted to the other side, and it was all the companions could do to stop themselves from careening over the edge of the ship.

Honeydew looked over the balustrade and noticed that the rigorous turning had drastically changed their trajectory, they were now turning towards the Pyramid from the sea, and were diving in a direct fall towards the Pyramid's golden cap.

"Hold on to something!" He yelled as the Celaeno crashed into the Pyramid's tip.

The entire ship juddered, but did not stop.

The ship "hopped" off the Pyramid, and hurtled towards the ground in front of the mountain range that the Yogcave lay beneath.

In the last moments before the ship crashed, Lysander yelled: "JUMP!"

Suddenly the Celaeno smashed into the ground in a symphony of splinters, as the cargo, and crew cascaded in every direction.

Xephos landed with an almighty thump on his back, his breath left his body and as the blackness began to descend upon him he thought back to the moment he glanced over his shoulder, he could have sworn that he'd seen the smoke more thickly condensed around the Yogcave...

The Shadow of Israphel

Created by The Yogscast

Re-Written by O.J. van der Beek

Act One:

The Sickening

Chapter One: Crash and Burn

It is an odd thing to be brought back from the brink of death. It is said that everyone experiences it differently, for Xephos it felt as though he had tumbled into a dark abyss, when suddenly a rope around his waist snapped taut, and pulled him towards the blinding light at the top of the pit. How the light hurt! Xephos wanted to sever the connection, and tumble into the comfort of the dark.

Xephos's eyes snapped open. He was lying on a bed of snow in a fit of shivering, a large plank of the Celaeno's deck lay across his waist. he sat bolt upright and gazed at the scene that lay before him. It was a cataclysm of wood, ice, and fire. The sky ship envelope lay deflated on the icy ground, the popped carcass of a mighty balloon. Splinters of wood were strewn everywhere, most of which was alight with crimson flames, tongues of fire licking at the sky. The fire had even spread to the trees on the frozen hillside, not much was left of said trees, they were just smoldering trunks, alight at the top like candles.

Before Xephos tried to get off the freezing floor, he would first have to pry the heavy lumber off his legs. He pushed with his legs and pulled with his bleeding arms, but the stubborn piece of wood was frozen to the ground like it was nailed there. Suddenly in the icy silence Xephos heard a wounded groan. It sounded of the deep, gruff voice of his dearest friend.

"Honeydew?" Xephos inquired. There was another groan, this time louder, it seemed to be coming from an enormous bundle, lying a limp silhouette in the late afternoon sun.

Late afternoon?

Xephos looked about himself, searching for a way to free himself from his prison. For if he didn't, night would fall and all manifestation of unholy creatures would descend upon them from the shadows.

Xephos's hand clenched upon a long piece of metal; a piece of railing from the Celaeno.

He pulled the pole next to his chest and grabbed a near-by faggot of wood.

He placed the faggot half a foot away from the piece of wood pinning him down, and hoisted the railing around and shoved it under the large piece of lumber in front of the faggot. He then pulled down on the railing, it became a lever off the lump of wood, freeing his aching legs.

He quickly pulled his legs out and released the lever. It slammed down on the snowy ground and sent splinters of ice flying like tiny frozen arrows.

Xephos tried to run over to his limp friend, but his legs wouldn't hold up. They crumpled beneath him as if they were made of parchment. So he began to crawl towards the Dwarf, the feeling slowly returning to his legs.

When he reached his friend, he pulled himself up onto his knees and rolled Honeydew, who was lying face down, onto his back. His mouth was blue in the corners, and his bare chest red and raw with cold, his orange beard frozen stiff

Xephos scratched his own scruffy, brown goatee as he thought of what he could possibly do.

He began to quickly stack up a pile of the drier wood to start a fire, but he hadn't a match. Then did he remember of Honeydew's coveted Flint and Steel.

His father had given him the tools when Honeydew left his home-city, Dwergholm. The crescent shaped piece of metal, ornate dwarven dragon-like motifs were chiseled into the cast bryne-steel, a near impregnable alloy of diamond and iron.

Xephos reached towards the two pouches on the opposite hips of his belt. He kept the flint in one, and his cherished steel in the other. As Xephos started to unbutton the steel's pouch, Honeydew's eyes snapped open.

His deep, black eyes stared wildly at Xephos, there was no recognition in those eyes.

The dwarf sprang to his feet, and scrambled on hands and knees five seven yards away from where he lay only seconds before. He turned, sat on his haunches, planted one of his gloved hands into the snowy ground, a fist of black leather, and the other into the pouch that his beloved steel lay inside.

Xephos stared at his friend, and rose to his shaky feet, trying to find his companion in the animal that crouched before him.

The dwarf hacked and coughed a few times, Xephos raised his hands, expecting his friend to charge.

Suddenly Honeydew spoke:

"Who am I?"

Xephos stared back, dumbstruck, Had the crash robbed his friend of his memory?

"Who are you?"

"I-" stammered Xephos "It's me, Xephos."

The dwarf tilted his head to one side, like a dog staring inquisitively at his master.

"Where am I?"

"The Yogcave. Do you remember the Yogcave?" persisted Xephos.

The Dwarf once again tilted his head to the side.

"The Yogcave! It is but a mile from here!" said Xephos, his hand shaking as he pointed towards a hill, over which the Yogcave would be clearly visible.

Not a drop of emotion befell his chiseled features.

Xephos fell to his knees in frustration.

Suddenly Honeydew's face exploded into a massive smile, his gold tooth glinted in the late afternoon sunlight.

"No need to cry, friend!" he shouted cheekily, quickly getting to his feet. "After all we've still got to find Lysander and Peculier!"

Xephos stared openmouthed at his friend, and got to his feet angrily.

"Idiot!" Xephos spat. "I thought that you had lost it! You and your childish tricks!"

Honeydew held his hands to his chest, in mock offense.

"I thought that you would be happy!" he sniffed. "And this is no time for arguing" His voice had now changed to a serious tone, he adjusted his horned, iron, helmet. Turned and yelled: "Peculier! Peculier!"

Xephos joined in, also calling out "Lysander!" a couple of times.

"Notch above!" cried Honeydew "Peculier was in the cabin!"

"Well," said Xephos "Where is that?"

They cast about, looking amongst the wasteland of timber, for any sign that would identify the cabin.

A low groan floated through the cold air.

"Peculier!" they both shouted, running past burning piles of wood towards the voice, it was coming from an enormous pile of timber next to the collapsed envelope.

The pile was huge, at least six feet tall and eight feet wide, how Peculier could possibly be alive was anyone's guess. The groan came again.

"We're coming for you, Peculier!" yelled Xephos, who was beginning to pull the pile apart.

Honeydew stood back, thumbing the rune on a string around his neck, would he finally have to use it's tremendous power?

Old Peculier groaned somewhere close under the pile.

He supposed not.

Honeydew began to rip up the wood next to his friend, searching for their companion. After a couple of minutes of digging they became aware of an extra pair of hands helping them.

They looked up and saw Skylord Lysander tearing up the wood alongside them.

"Lysander?" cried Xephos.

"Where did you spring from?" asked the Dwarf.

"Why the tone of surprise?" said Lysander grimly. He went on to explain that he had awoken under the envelope, and when he heard them digging for Peculier, followed their voices.

Just as he finished, they dug up a sort of cave as it were, under the mountain of splinters.

It was really just a large wall propped up against a large boulder, somehow supporting the gargantuan mound of the rest of the ship.

Inside the dark cave they could hear something groaning.

"Peculier?" called Lysander.

The silhouette of Old Peculier moved in the shadows.

"Lysander?" he called back, squinting his eyes out of the inky black. "Heroes!" he yelled as he noticed Xephos and Honeydew.[He rarely ever called them anything else]

"Come to us, old friend!" said Lysander.

"I can't!" Peculier groaned again "my leg is wedged under the wall! I think it's broken!"

Honeydew swore loudly.

"How badly is it stuck?" asked Lysander. If the full weight of the wall that was supporting the pile of debris was pinning down his leg, it would have to amputated.

"Not too badly!" he yelled back. "Some debris is slightly propping up the wall! If it wasn't there, my leg would be completely crushed!"

"I'm coming in to help you, Peculier!" said Honeydew as he ducked dow and crawled on hands and knees towards his trapped friend.

When the dwarf got to Peculier, he pressed his muscular back to the ceiling, and pushed.

The whole pile creaked, but the wall hardly moved. Peculier yelped.

"Stop, Dwarf! You'll cause the pile to collapse!"

Honeydew fell on his chest, exaughisted.

"Blast!" said Lysander. "What do propose that we do, Xephos?" he turned to his side, but Xephos wasn't there. Lysander cast about, and saw Xephos running towards him, he was holding a metal pole, and a small lump of wood.

"What are you doing?" the Skylord yelled.

"Who?" said Honeydew, as he crawled back through the small opening.

"You're friend."

Xephos came up to them and started to crawl through the opening.

"What are you playing at, friend?" rumbled Honeydew.

Finally Xephos said: "When I awoke, I was also pinned down, but I used these," he turned in the hole and brandished the pole and log,"to lever myself free!"

"And you intend to do the same for Peculier?" inquired Lysander.

"Yes." replied Xephos.

"But that could cause this wooden tomb to become unstable!" said Honeydew.

"What! What was that about a tomb?" chattered Old Peculier.

"Nothing, old man!" yelled the dwarf. "Go back to you're...whatever."

Xephos disappeared inside the hole, seconds later, the whole thing began to judder.

Xephos began screaming; "Go Peculier! Go!"

Honeydew reached inside the hole and grabbed Old Peculier, as he started to haul him up. But with his his keen dwarven eyes, he saw his friend struggling to hold up the weight of the wooden cairn.

"Xephos!" he shouted "Let it go!"

"No!" said Peculier. "The whole thing is unstable! He is the only thing keeping it from collapsing!"

Honeydew hauled Peculier out into the open, his balding head gleaming in the dusk sunlight. He and Lysander, then stuck their arms into the pit, open and gaping like a mouth, about to swallow their friend.

Xephos was just out of grasp, the metal bar was beginning to bend, if he was going to try to escape, now was the time.

Suddenly Xephos relinquished his hold on the bar, leapt towards Honeydew and Lysander, who in turn, grabbed him and flung him out into the air, he sailed through the peachy sunlight for six feet, and landed with a thud on the snowy ground.

He pulled himself up and turned to face companions, he saw that the entire mound had collapsed, had he been beneath it, it would have been his grave.

Lysander was gingerly, feeling Peculier's leg, who was moaning in pain.

Honeydew was walking towards the envelope, studying the ground.

Xephos ran over to Lysander and the struggling Peculier.

Lysander looked up. "His leg is most definitely broken, I'll have to make you a splint, Peculier."

"Anything that I can do?" asked Xephos.

"Stay here while I gather what I need for a splint."

Lysander stood up and ran over to a tangle of rigging next to the envelope.

"Thank you for helping me in there, hero." said Peculier. "I'd have been a goner, had you not been there."

Xephos nodded. He was distracted, before the crash had knocked him out he had been thinking of something, something important...

"You seem troubled, my friend, what is wrong?" croaked Peculier.

Behind Peculier, Lysander drew his gilded, silver cutlass with a sharp ring. He then began to saw at the rigging's thick rope with his sharp sword.

Honeydew was walking about, staring at the ground, as if following a breadcrumb trail, Lysander kept glancing nervously at him, as if afraid that he knew something.

Xephos turned back to Peculier.

"Yes, you're right. There is something that's bothering me, but the fact is that I can't remember what-"

Suddenly, Lysander tromped along to them, he was carrying two stout sticks, and three lengths of rope.

"You might want to go see what your friend is going." he mumbled to Xephos as he placed the sticks on either side of Peculier's leg and began to bind them to his leg with the rope.

Xephos got up and walked towards friend who was sitting on a box, rubbing his brow ridge,twenty yards away.

"What troubles you, friend?" Xephos asked.

Honeydew looked up at his friend. "I don't trust Lysander." he said.

Xephos stopped.

"What?" he yelled. He then glanced nervously over his shoulder quickly. "What?" he said more quietly. "How can you? The man sailed his airship, which is now in ruins, over uncharted waters, using only directions from another ship, to the Survival Island, and saved us! Why do you not trust him?"

Hardly a day ago, the two heroes were rescued from a tiny island in the middle of the ocean by the Skylord and Old Peculier. They had merely awoken on it's shores, and suspected that they had been transported there by some dark power, probably of The Dark One's doing.

"Because," intoned Honeydew "He said that he woke up under the envelope, which he did, but a while before he came to us. I followed his foot prints, and they show that he walked around the area of the crash site."

"And?" retorted Xephos.

"Then it gets interesting," said Honeydew. "His footprints met with the footprints of a _Creeper's!"_

Xephos was lost for words. This was interesting. Creepers were green, insect-like creatures that excreted green goo from the top half of their body. Underneath said goo, the Creeper vaguely resembles a human with no arms, and four crab-ish legs. The slime drooped around their faces, giving them a horrifying expression of screaming in pain. They also had a nasty habit of running towards people and exploding.

"Well," said Xephos. "he was probably examining the Creeper's footprints, in this light, it is hard to make anything out."

"Yes, well-" waffled the Dwarf.

"Nothing of it!" stated Xephos.

"But, but..."

"But, nothing!" yelled Xephos. "You have a tendency to misinterpret things, and-"

"Heroes!"

They both looked up and saw Old Peculier hobbling towards them, a splint on his leg, and Lysander running behind him, trying to get him to rest.

"Gather your equipment, and meet me at the Portal, when you are ready!"

"Portal? What Por-" started Honeydew, but turned to look behind him.

Half way up the small mountainside across the iced bay, in an enormous cave, a gaping wound in the mountains face that the two had nick-named The Cave of Terror, was a huge, black rectangular frame, much like a picture frame. And within this midnight gateway, issued a vibrant purple light, swirling in a never-ending spiral. How could he have forgotten about the Nether Portal?

He and Xephos had built it when they were living in the Yogcave, which wasn't far from this spot. But before they could go through the Portal, to gather precious minerals from the hellish Nether, they unwittingly unleashed an ancient evil upon the world. The morning that they were going to venture into the Portal they were attacked by a mysterious person with white skin, red eyes, and black robes.

Little did they know that they had just released the dark spirit, Israphel, the Dark one, the most evil entity of all the Nether, onto the world.

They encountered him many more times, once he even wired a dynamite booby-trap to the rear entrance of the Yogcave, which nearly killed Honeydew, and destroyed some of their home.

But the last time they had seen Israphel, or as Honeydew tended to call him; That Pale-faced Git, they had followed him as he fled, and led them along a strange road, this road led them to the hamlet of Terrorvale, where they met Old Peculier by the gateway, who invited them to his inn; the Skeletal Arms.

At the time, Xephos and Honeydew did not know of anyone living near them, in fact they assumed that they were the first to come to this area, but this tiny village was home to Reverend John, Old Peculier, who was enamored with the local blacksmith, Daisy Dukes, who asked if the two heroes could go and mine a cache of diamonds in the local mine, and she would make them some armor. They were also told of an enigmatic character known as Bob, who was missing for many weeks before their visit to the town.

It was in Terrorvale that the heroes uncovered a vital piece of the Dark Lord's past.

The Reverend sent the two of them with Peculier in tow on a bogus quest to recover his beloved bible from his house, which was overrun by the undead. When they went inside and began to fight off the zombies, Old Peculier commented: "Poor man, his son Israphel was out hunting when the creepers got him."

When the couldn't find the bible, the heroes returned to find John in his church's crypt staring down at coffin. Suddenly, he went mad and attacked Honeydew, yelling: "My Lord promised that I would not see you again. Taste my holy blade!"

Xephos ran him through with his sword crafted from solid diamond, and saw that the coffin that John was staring at bore a plaque inscribed with: ISRAPHEL.

Xephos led Peculier outside to distract him whilst Honeydew burnt Israphel's grave, but Peculier returned to the crypt before the fire was out, and then they noticed the grave's empty bottom.

It opened into a tunnel that wound beneath the ground and to Israphel's stronghold.

Israphel had kidnapped Daisy, and held her captive in his castle situated in a large cavern beneath Terrorvale. After returning to the surface to get better equipped, and finding the armor that Daisy had made for them, splitting the armor between them, and the three heroes; Xephos, Honeydew, and Peculier, attempted to rescue her. And after fighting their way through the fortress, they followed Israphel and Daisy down a long, winding escape tunnel that Israphel had dug. But when they reached the end of the tunnel, they found that their Portal lay before them, Israphel had dug right under a frozen sea, and behind the Portal, then gone through, with Daisy. The two didn't tell Peculier that they had been the ones who had made the Portal, as he was showing an obvious resentment to those who had created it, although he didn't know who did.

Shortly after arriving outside the tunnel, Xephos and Honeydew collapsed, and awoke on the Survival Island.

"The old man is desperate to save his love." panted Skylord Lysander beside Xephos and Honeydew. "The only reason that he did not go through the Portal without you is because he knew that he needed reinforcements, for he would be slain instantly, and you were the only one's who would follow him into the Nether."

"Then let us go to his aid!" yelled Honeydew as he dashed off towards Peculier, who was climbing very slowly up the cobblestone stairway that Honeydew and Xephos had built for easier access to the portal on the other side of the small, frozen bay. The dwarf had shown in Terrorvale that he was attracted to the blacksmith, although he did not know of Peculier feeling the same way.

"Hurry along then, Skylord!" said Xephos as he followed his friend towards the stairway.

Xephos ran alongside his companion, whose orange beard had long since thawed-out, and was billowing over his shoulder like fire erupting from his mouth.

The two ran to the foot of the stone stairway, and started towards their friend who was nearing the top of the stair. He turned towards them and yelled down at them: "Heroes! Gather your equipment and follow me through the Portal when you are ready!"

The heroes look blankly back down the stairs and saw that the Celanao's lock-box was sitting open at the foot of the stair, they had ran right past it.

They descended the stone steps and into the presence of Lysander, who had just ran to the foot of the stair.

Xephos fell to his knees and began to rifle through the gear, drawing out his majestic longbow and it's case, his quiver of rudimentary arrows, and his elegant, leather bound scimitar. He stood and drew his sword, its straight, one sided metallic-blue blade aglow with azure light as it caught the last rays of sunset.

Honeydew withdrew his small ornate crossbow, crafted from chestnut, with a falcon's head open mouthed and hollowed out at the front of the crossbow shaft, made so when the bolt flew from the bow, it would fly out of the mouth. Next the dwarf pulled out a small pouch of crossbow bolts, then he pulled out a small, broad bladed sword with an enormous diamond in the hilt, and along the blade it wore dwarven runes reading: Cleaver of Foes.

Honeydew tied the pouch containing the bolts to his belt, fastened his swords scabbard to his back, and hooked his crossbow next to the pouch on his belt. When he turned around he saw that Xephos had shouldered his bow, in it's case and quiver, and held his sword in hand.

"We may be in need of these.." said Lysander, who was reaching into chest, and pulled out a bandoleer fitted with ten sticks of explosive dynamite.

The pyromaniac dwarf's eyes lit up.

"I'll look after those!" he yelled snatching the belt of explosives from the Skylord, and fumbled to fasten it over his shoulder.

Lysander, now looking rather annoyed with the dwarf knelt down next to a pile of smoldering wood and reached back into the large chest, now producing two small steel buckets, not much larger than an ale tankard. One was clothed in ornate motifs depicting swirling fluids, the other was no more than a roughly banged out metal shell. Both were caped with wood to stop the contents from spilling.

"What do those contain, Skylord?" asked Xephos, as his dwarven friend hesitantly staggered up to stairs.

"Milk and water," he replied. "however this bucket," he held aloft the ornate one. "is special because-"

"If you two are done gossiping!" yelled Honeydew, who was nearing the top of the stairs. "Don't you think that we should be moving on?"

"Yes!" croaked Peculier from atop the stairway.

Xephos turned and ran up the stairs, whilst Lysander continued to briefly rifle through the chest.

Half the way up the stair, Xephos turned down to Lysander, and called: "Lysander! Hurry along!"

Lysander stowed the buckets, and some more gear into a satchel that he had found in the chest, and stood to ascend the stairway, but he seemed to not notice that the pile of embers he was kneeling next to had set his white leggings alight.

"Your on fire, Skylord!" yelled Xephos.

Lysander looked around him, and noticing that his leg was alight, he proceeded to yell, but managed to pat it out.

"Are you all right, Lysander?" asked Peculier.

"I'm fine!" he responded, then began to climb the stairs. "But let us tarry no longer! We must save Daisy!" He ran past Xephos, who then followed after him.

They then reached the top of the stairs, and all four of them turned and stared at the Portal.

They stood at the mouth of The Cave of Terror, it's roof open before them, like a grotesque mouth. The sickly, purple light inside the black obsidian frame pulsated like a heart beat, and strange moss appeared to have been leaking out from the Nether through the Portal, clawing like strangling green fingers across the stone floor. The Portal was emitting a gravely sighing noise, and a distant heartbeat

The sun had all but vanished, and the mountains enormous overhang turned the area of which the Portal stood into a vast cave.

Suddenly, Peculier drew his battered sword, held it in both hands, stood out in front of the other three, in a heroic pose, and whispered: "For Daisy!"

He then turned and ran clumsily into the Portal, hampered by his splint, the purple light rippling behind him as he disappeared.

Honeydew pulled his sword from his back-scabbard, yelled: "I'm comin' for you, you bastard, Israphel!" Then he ran into the Portal.

Lysander in turn drew his sword, turned to Xephos, nodded, and got swallowed up by the light, as he yelled; "For victory!".

Xephos merely sighed, held his sword aloft, and ran into the Portal.

Xephos wasn't sure what he was expecting to happen, perhaps a sense of vertigo and the feeling of being pulled through a very small pipe. But he certainly did not expect to emerge on the other side of the Portal as if they had walked around the other side and the swirling light hadn't even existed.

Peculier was casting about the back of the cave, as if the Nether may be hiding in some small corner of the room. But the Portal had not worked, they were still in the normal world by some trickery of Israphel. Oddly the floor of the cave was covered in coarse sand, which was crunching under Peculier's feet as he tromped about awkwardly on his splinted leg. Lysander was just looking bewildered, and Honeydew was poking around the corner of the Portal, just to make sure that they hadn't gone anywhere.

No one said anything for a while, but the silence was broken when Honeydew walked round from the other side of the Portal.

"Balls." he said loudly.

Old Peculier threw his sword to the floor.

"Curse him! He has sealed the way!" yelled Peculier, but seemed only now to become aware of the sand, staring at it in almost fear. "This sand... could it be?"

"Yeah," said Xephos. " there is a lot of sand about-"

"No!" wailed Peculier. "The Portal must be destroyed!"

Lysander turned to him. "What ,Peculier, what is it?"

"It must be destroyed!" yelled Peculier, adamant that this sand had somehow made the Portal a hazard.

"Well," asked Lysander, "What about Daisy?"

"Yeah! How can we follow Israphel without the Portal?" huffed Honeydew.

"There are other Portals in this world," Peculier responded. "We must find them."

Xephos was crouched on the ground, picking up handfuls of sand and watching it run through his fingers. "This sand..." he mumbled.

"These are ill times, I fear that the world is in peril." sighed Peculier.

The sun had completely disappeared, and the moon was casting ominous shadows across the snowy landscape.

"Destroy it with haste heroes," said Skylord Lysander, as he pulled a small, stout pickaxe crafted from what appeared to be solid, ice-blue diamond from his satchel, and tossed it to Honeydew. "lest it corrupts this land more!"

"Worry not old man." said Honeydew to Peculier, slurring his words ever so slightly. "I shall destroy the Portal."

"It pains me, but Daisy must wait." Peculier seemed to struggle to get the words out.

Honeydew mumbled as he sidled up to one of the Portal's columns and began to hack at the beams: "First he wanted to go through it, now we have to destroy it, I wish he'd make up his bloody mind!"

After a minute or two of battering the Portal, Honeydew finally severed a gap in the side of the Portal. Slowly the light faded back from the gap, eventually receding all the way to the frame, and the Portal, with it's rasping voice, disappeared, leaving the mutilated obsidian corpse standing empty within the cave.

"There we go!" beamed Honeydew, who seemed to have taken a shine to the pickaxe, and slid it into his belt.

Suddenly, Peculier clutched his chest. He hunched over, broken leg wobbling, gasping for air. Xephos, Honeydew, and Lysander all ran to their friend's side.

Phrases such as; "Oh no!", "Hang in there!", and even a "Don't go into the light!" were being thrown about, Peculier slowly regained his stature, he was moaning, "So...tired...But I can not rest!"

"Peculier you are sick!" yelled Lysander. "We must get you to Mistral City!"

"Daisy..." Peculier moaned.

"We can continue the search there!" assured the Skylord.

Honeydew and Xephos looked at each other in confusion, then at Lysander.

"Mistral City?" queried Honeydew. Lysander _had _mentioned that place on board the airship.

"Yes, thank you old friend. Let us hurry!" croaked Peculier to Lysander.

Xephos ran his fingers through his ruddy hair, "Where _is _this city?"

Lysander didn't look up from Peculier. "It's a long way away, at least a day. You should gather any supplies that you my have."

Xephos grimly nodded and leapt through the Portal's shell and started back down the steep stairway. He was constantly looking about, he did not want any Skeletons, Zombies, Creepers, or giant Spiders sneaking up on him as he rifled through the chest again.

"Oi, Lysander!" exclaimed Honeydew. The Skylord shot the Dwarf a sharp glance for his rudeness. "What?" Lysander snapped.

"Weren't you saying one of those buckets was full of milk?" asked Honeydew.

Lysander looked puzzled. "Yes?"

"So," Honeydew said, gesturing to Peculier. "I think that the man could use some milk!"

Lysander obeyed and unbuckled his satchel, producing the plain bucket. He ripped off the wooden cap and discarded it amongst much of the paraphernalia in his bag.

"We have the milk!" chortled Honeydew.

Lysander offered it to Peculier, who hastily thanked Lysander, and slurped it noisily down. When he removed the bucket from his lips, some of the milk had condensed on his heavy stubble, making it seem a comical white.

Suddenly, Xephos leapt through the Portal, chest-plate gleaming in the moonlight, carrying two bulging leather satchels, and breathing heavily.

"There are dozens of monsters out there." he huffed, deftly tossing one of the bags to his Dwarven companion, who opened it to find a bundle of torches, an iron pickaxe, some bread, and a few pebbles of precious glowstone, an extremely hard to obtain mineral that glows to a remarkable degree. "We must move soon." he noticed Peculier. "Here, friend." he tossed him a small, wax paper wrapped parcel. Peculier made a sorry attempt to catch the package, tottering on his bad leg, and it thudded onto the sandy floor.

Honeydew stooped picked up the parcel, unwrapped it, revealing a cold, cooked pork chop. He then handed it to Peculier, saying: "You have a little something," he pointed to his own ginger stubbled face. "Right there."

Peculier snatched the paper from Honeydew and wiped down his mouth. "I must gather my strength." he groaned and tossed the paper on the ground, and bit into the pork chop. "Thank you heroes." he said around a mouthful of pork. "That has helped me some."

Xephos was kneeling in the Portal frame, his bow in hand, with an arrow knocked into it. Honeydew strolled over to the left side of the cave looking for a gap in the wall...

"Isn't your house near here?" asked Peculier, as he finished his pork chop.

"How did you know about that?" said Honeydew, continuing to scan the wall.

"I heard you two," he sat on the ground and nodded at Xephos. "talking about your home back on board the Celeano. Before it...well."

"It's alright friend." said Lysander, who had since been seated on a boulder but was now walking towards Xephos. "I am honored that if the Celeano should fall, it would do so saving these heroes."

Xephos often wondered why he and Honeydew were referred to as "heroes". They had never done anything particularly heroic, no more so than Old Peculier, who all in all had shown more courage than the two of them together. No, Peculier was the real hero.

"To answer your question, Peculier, yes. Our home, the Yogcave is near here. In fact an entrance to it is near the rear of the cavern."

"Oh look." said Honeydew in an obviously blatant lying tone, "A mysterious hole that i've never seen before." he stood bolt upright facing his companions, pointing into a man-sized cleft.

"Perhaps that," spat Peculier. "is your "Yogcave"?"

Xephos didn't respond, he left his post inside the Portal frame, placed the arrow back in his quiver, shouldered his bow and started across the cave towards his friend, with Lysander in tow. As he reached the mouth of the cave he could see a small amount of light was issuing from it. He had to duck a little in order to get inside, but when he did he found himself in a small cave with one small torch that was now no more than a stub, and a small chest. This was the place that he and Honeydew had put aside as a small base of operations, should they ever need to use the Portal, they would not need to walk back to the Yogcave.

Honeydew came after him, and whispered: "Oh, I'd forgot that we had this place."

Xephos knelt and open the chest.

It was full of utterly trivial devices, such as a small gold knife, a cow hide, a bag of some redstone dust, a type of powder that was encrusted with some kind of magical energy that could be used to power all manifestation of devices.

Xephos stood and turned and saw Peculier and Lysander had followed them into the cave, making it quite cramped.

"Is this your house? It's quite small..." mused Lysander, as he looked about.

Honeydew looked at him sternly.

"You cheeky-" he started, only to be cut off by Xephos.

"No, no. This is, err," he stalled trying to weave up a convincing lie, that would stop Lysander and Peculier from connecting the dots, and finding that it was them who created the Portal, Peculier was already suspicious when Honeydew "found" this cave, and Lysander was looking skeptically at them with one eyebrow raised.

"this is obviously an outpost of Israphel's! Yes. And, err, it would be used when he, uh, comes back from the Nether!"

The lie came out quite well, both Lysander and Peculier seemed to buy it, nodding and murmuring, then Lysander asked again: "So where is your home?"

"Perhaps you "landed" on it, Lysander?" croaked Peculier.

"You just wait and see!" said Xephos, suddenly _very_ keen to get home. He gestured to the exit of the cave. Peculier, dragging his bad leg, and Lysander shuffled out of the claustrophobic room. Once they had left, Honeydew planted a meaty hand on Xephos's shoulder, who looked up at his friend who appeared to have been holding his breath throughout the recent ordeal, he just said: "Well done." and sidled past Xephos, who got to his feet and followed his friends out the exit.

"Our home is the glorious YOGCAVE!" chortled Honeydew, once they were back outside in the shadow of "Israphel's" Portal.

"Access via this tunnel here!" Honeydew ran to the other side of the cave, to where the he and Xephos had dug a tunnel from their home to the Portal. Unfortunately due to the sand that had sifted through the Portal, only the tip of the tunnel could be seen under a dune of sand, banked up against the wall, as if by someone had walled it up...

Honeydew began to dig furiously at it with his hands at the wall of sand, sending the stuff everywhere. It was now properly into the night, and the darkness had seeped in long ago, they hadn't risked lighting any torches, for monsters tended to be attracted to them, however it would be safer to have light. Xephos reached down into his bag and produced a single torch, then he reached deep into one of his pockets, this time fishing out a sad looking flint and steel that was falling into disrepair. He planted the stem of the torch into the sand, away from where Honeydew's sand would douse the flame. He struck his flint and steel together, causing a spark to course through the air, missing it's mark on the torch. It took Xephos three more goes until the torch ignited, he blew gently on it, until it had a strong flame.

Xephos pulled the torch from the ground and turned to see Honeydew had dug a roughly knee-high hole in the sand barrier and was sitting aloft it, puffing, whist the others stood impatiently beside him. Damn, thought Xephos, he thought that it would take the dwarf longer to dig out the hole, the tunnel was lined with torches, so all his effort was for nothing.

"Ah!" breathed Honeydew "Praise Notch you've lit that torch, friend! The ones in the tunnel are all out!"

"What?" said Xephos. The torch in "Israphel's" outpost had been alight, and that had been placed before the ones in the tunnel. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Look!" he shifted his buttocks and pointed down the dark passageway, it was pitch black, save the faint glow at the end of the tunnel. So the Yogcave lights hadn't faded, that was a plus.

"Heroes, let us delay no longer, the hole is dug, let us go to your home." Lysander stood and gestured to the tunnel as he spoke.

"Yes." said Xephos "I'll go first." even as he said it, he shimmied feet first into the abyss.

Xephos held his torch aloft, and called the others in.

Honeydew came first, followed by Peculier, groaning if his leg was touched by anything, and then Lysander.

"Follow me!" yelled Honeydew in a sing-song kind of voice, drawing one of his own torches, and lighting it off Xephos's. "I'll lead the way!" and ran down the tunnel towards his home, with Lysander, and Xephos in pursuit, and Peculier doing his best, the wooden split clonking on the stone floor. Xephos overtook his dwarven friend, and as they were nearing the end of the tunnel they began to slow down. Something wasn't right. There should have been water at the end of the tunnel, they had made the tunnel behind a waterfall, to make it more discreet. The water was gone. There was fire at the end of the tunnel.

Suddenly they both began to sprint towards the end of the tunnel, leaving Lysander and Old Peculier in the dark.

Suddenly they emerged at the end of the tunnel and gazed upon what used to be their home.

Their home had been a cave that they had put flooring, and walls up in, they had made it quite homely. But now, where the back entrance of their home was, an enormous crater now sat.

Fire was everywhere, it was a wasteland of flame and rock, the mountain that their home had sat beneath was half blown up, now a scar lay across the landscape, a gash right through the mountainside. Thick, black smoke rose from the ruins of their home, soaring into the night sky.

Both of their torches clattered to the ground.

Honeydew fell to his knees and screamed at the bombarded ceiling, while Xephos stood and said nothing. Suddenly Old Peculier and Lysander emerged from the tunnel, to see their friend kneeling on a precipice over a huge crater. Old Peculier was looking about in confusion at his companions, and said awkwardly: "Well this doesn't look very homely."

"No," growled Honeydew, he got to his feet and turned to Peculier, his eyes wild and teeth set. "this looks like a few tonnes of TNT, has blown a big hole!" he then began to weep.

Peculier shrank back into the tunnel mouth in shame.

Xephos hadn't moved, he had remembered what he had forgotten after the crash, he had seen the smoke in the sky coming from the Yogcave, but that didn't matter now, he was just staring at where his house had been. Where was their Yogcave? Why wasn't it here? But if there was one thing he was sure of, it was who had done this, now he did know that; Israphel. That name burned brighter than the ruins of his home, his hatred for this fiend had now increased tenfold since he emerged from the tunnel. He looked to his right, and saw a glimmer of hope. It appeared that Israphel hadn't destroyed everything, Xephos could see some floor boards at the rim of the crater.

"Look, friend! All hope is not lost!" he knelt next to Honeydew and pointed up to the wooden boards, many feet above them.

"We've been on such a long journey," Honeydew sobbed. "through so many places, and, I just wanted to go home!"

"Do not lose heart friend!" said Lysander. "Let us see what lies above!" Lysander began climbing the rugged wall of the crater. Honeydew looked up, seeing the floorboards leapt to his feet and scrambled up the rock face, quickly passing Lysander.

"I'll come behind you, Peculier." said Xephos, even though he was itching to see what lay above. Peculier started slowly and awkwardly up the wall, hindered once again by his broken leg, with Xephos following him offering moral support, and sometimes having to offer him his hand, of head as a foot hold, which was very painful considering the fact one of Peculier's legs was clamped in jagged wood.

As they reached halfway the crater grew to a vertical climb, and saw Honeydew and Lysander slip over the rim and onto the floor boards, and peer over the edge, waiting for them to come close enough to offer them a hand up.

After a long and unsteady climb they reached near enough the rim Lysander and Honeydew hauled Peculier over onto the hard floor, Xephos followed after, but as he placed his foot on it, some of the shingle came loose, and Xephos began to plummet back down the cliff. He would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks, but suddenly Honeydew's arm shot out like an arrow and grasped his wrist.

"Ooooh! Careful now!" shouted Honeydew, he grimaced at his friend and hauled him up onto the remains of their flooring. The floor was riddled with boulders and on fire, but for the most part was being doused, for the explosion had carved away half of the mountain, and caused a fresh-water spring to run down into their home, quelling the flames.

The front half of their house was largely intact, the front entrance had the side walls knocked out from it's sides, and the wooden door had been knocked off it's hinges. Their furnace, workbench and chests, all on the left of where they stood were all there, and the entrance to their mine shaft, an exposed cave mouth next to their work-benches and chests, was relatively untouched. However the ceiling was non-existent, completely blasted away in places, so was the tower that Xephos had been working on, that used to be sprouting from a hole in their rock ceiling. The only proof that there had been a tower there was a stairway cleaved from the rock leading nowhere.

Xephos grimaced. He had spent so long on those stairs. As he strolled towards them through water spilling over the floor from the spring above, and stopped short of an enormous hole, about five arm spans wide, going so deep that he couldn't see the bottom.

The sound of monsters was echoing all around the Yogcave ruins, but the fire seemed to be keeping them at bay.

"Right, I've got a question to ask, it's very important." growled Honeydew, and turned aggressively to the Skylord. "Lysander, did you crash into our Yogcave!"

"No!" yelped Lysander, backing towards the wall. Xephos took a hesitant step towards them, incase things got physical. "It's the smoke from this place! It slogged the Celaeno, and caused her to crash."

Honeydew stepped back from Lysander. Peculier coughed heavily.

"Ooohhhhhh..." said Honeydew. "Erm... Sorry."

"We should leave." said Lysander, and walked over to Peculier, who began to whisper quietly to him.

"Our home..." sighed the Dwarf. Xephos thumped him heartily on his back.

"Focus on the task at hand, friend."

At that moment, Peculier stumped his way towards Honeydew, holding a pair of fetching armor-boots that appeared to be crafted from plate diamond. He presented them to Honeydew.

"Dwarf, I found these boots on my travels! Don't ask where or how, but they are too heavy for me."

"Booties!" Honeydew exclaimed, eagerly receiving the boots, and sitting on the floor to fit them.

Old Peculier, who suddenly seemed to be overcome with dizziness, staggered towards the wall, and sat with his back against it, Lysander standing beside him.

Honeydew stood up, with his new footwear secured on his feet, and said to Peculier; "Thanks a lot, friend!"

He looked at his feet, giggled, did a bit of a dance, and looked up and saw Xephos smirking at him.

"I mean; yeah thanks, that really makes up for my home being destroyed!" spat Honeydew, but not loud enough for Peculier to hear.

"It's alright friend, I like your boots!" laughed Xephos.

Honeydew grunted, and walked over to the hole deep hole that Xephos had been examined. He craned his neck, and spat down the pit.

"So, let me get this straight." said Honeydew. "Someone," they all knew he meant Israphel. "blew up our house." This led Xephos, Honeydew, and Peculier to believe Israphel had enlisted the help of the Creeper Boss, a tall, more human-like creeper that could detonate very large explosions several times before he died, even then it appeared that he could be revived, as they had encountered him at Israphel's castle, along with Zombie Boss, a sewn together monstrosity. " And the smoke from the wreckage caused the air ship to crash." elementary. "So it wasn't me set fire to the ship!"

"What!" asked the others in almost perfect synchronization.

"Well, both you and Peculier know about my...habits." said Honeydew to Xephos. He was talking about when he burnt Israphel's coffin, it was true, the dwarf had pyromaniac tendencies, and both Peculier and Xephos were ashamed to admit they had their suspicions of him.

After Honeydew stopped laughing, Xephos walked over to the huge chest that he and Honeydew had stored their equipment in during their time in the Yogcave. He threw open the lid, and pulled out a large bundle of torches, and a large, curved hunting knife from amongst the pile of gear, stowing both of which in his satchel.

"We should leave at dawn," said Lysander. "So the road is safe."

Staying the night in their old, ruined home? Thought Honeydew as he watched a giant spider traverse the crater below them, making sure it didn't come towards them, but it wandered into the distance, it's glowing red eyes eventually disappearing as it faded away.

Peculier staggered to his feet, bad leg wobbling, and holding his chest.

"I cannot stay here." he coughed.

Lysander, Honeydew and Xephos rushed over to Peculier, holding him up.

"The smoke," Peculier let out a hacking cough, sending phlegm onto the wooden floor.

"You're right," replied Lysander. "Gather your supplies and we will head out immediately!"

"How far do we need to go?" asked Xephos, but Lysander was already leading a weary Peculier down the to the other side of the wooden floor of their island in a sea of fire and rubble to where the front door once stood, and ran through the entrance ruins and the into the night.

"Well," sighed Honeydew, taking one last look at the remains of his home. "onward to Mistral City!"

The two heroes ran after their friends into the chaos of black snow.


	2. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 2

Chapter Two: The Road To Mistral City

"Okay Skylord, friend, lead the way!" Honeydew called as he and Xephos ran to join Old Peculier and Skylord Lysander on the other side of entrance of the Yogcave, that now stood as a semi-decayed corpse behind them. Water from the spring above was running tumultuously around them, roaring in the dark and bubbling like hundreds of caldrons being brought to a boil.

Both Lysander and Peculier had their swords drawn, glinting in the ethereal glow of the forest that lay in flame about them.

"Yes," said Lysander as he looked about in case any of the nights fell beasts set themselves upon the company. "Follow me!"

He led his companions in past an enormous tree, at least twice as tall as all the others in the forest of fire, and was black from the fire that had ravaged it, although it still stood.

Xephos took a sharp intake of breath, this had been the "Yogtree".

"That was the Yogtree!," he whispered to his Dwarven friend as they hurried past it. "The Yogtree was on fire!"

Honeydew grunted, they had mixed feelings for this tree, it had suddenly appeared one morning, and they had mostly ignored it. They had assumed it was the work of Israphel.

They splashed through the rapids coursing around them, sending white foam everywhere.

"Oh gods, I'm swimming." breathed Honeydew as he trudged slowly behind Peculier, who once again was being slowed by his leg.

Xephos ran ahead to join Lysander, who was leading them right, and towards the wreck of the Celeano. He followed Lysander up a ridge coming off from the mountain where the trees thinned. They stopped and turned to see the gaunt green figure of a Creeper stalking through the trees towards Honeydew and Peculier.

"There's a Creeper over they, so watch out." yelled Xephos softly to his friends, as to not attract the monster's attention.

Honeydew turned to see the wretched green face turn towards them through the black bodies of the dead trees and begin to slowly walk towards them.

Peculier and Honeydew ran up the ridge to join the rest of the company, and ran down the other side.

"It's coming," said Xephos as he and Lysander ran after the other two. "It's got us in it's sights."

They turned their heads to see the Creeper scrambling over the ridge behind them, and run after them.

"Peg it!" roared Honeydew.

They were coming back into the light of the Celaeno's wreck, the dull light was beckoning them forwards, with the Creeper in hot pursuit. But Peculier was tiring, he was breathing heavily and coughing in between gulps of air.

"Just keep running!" yelled Xephos, listening intently for the tell-tale fuse like hiss that a Creeper made one and a half seconds before it detonated.

They ran to the edge of the snow and ash covered turf and had to leap down off a three foot embankment, and helped Peculier down onto the snow coated beach.

"Creeper!" screamed Old Peculier as he stumbled after Lysander.

The Creeper had gained on them as they helped Peculier down the bank, and was barely twelve yards from Honeydew.

The Dwarf turned to see the Creeper clambering over piles of rubble towards him, it's face frozen in a silent scream as it pursed it's quarry.

"Oh cripes." said Honeydew as he continued to run towards the gas bag of the airship. With one swift movement he unlatched his cross-bow from his belt, pulled a bolt from the pouch, knocked it into the crossbow, which held in a single hand as smoothly he turned and loosed the bolt

It shot from the wooden falcon's throat like an eagle diving to snatch a hare from the grass, peeling through the night and embedding itself in the Creeper's forehead area just as it had begun to hiss loudly.

The Creeper fell over and lay face down on the snow, the green goo from it's body seeping onto the floor.

"Good shooting!" congratulated Xephos from behind a stack of wood.

Honeydew grimaced in the starlight, "Yeah, but I don't think that it will be the last one we will see.

The company continued to run until they came to the end of the shore where it met the frozen sea. They began to run tentatively over the snow covered ice, Xephos first, Lysander second, Peculier next, and Honeydew bringing up the rear. They began to round a small headland at the end of the bay, but suddenly a hungry moan resonated through the night.

Xephos looked up at the headland to see a figure leap over the rocky ledge and like a cat on the slippery ice.

The zombie lifted his mottled, misshapen head and roared at Xephos, it began to walk towards him, arms forwards, waiting to grasp at Xephos's throat.

Xephos drew his sword, the straight blade letting out an ice blue glow, that caused the fiend to hiss at him.

Xephos ran forward and slid on his knees at the zombies legs. The ice caused him to ram into them with enough strength and speed to knock the zombie onto it's face as Xephos slid out behind him.

On his feet, Xephos ran towards the zombie, who had rolled over and was reaching up towards him. Xephos sliced at the zombies thin, decaying arm, causing it to slide across the ice. Xephos looked up and saw Honeydew, Lysander, and Old Peculier running to his aid.

The zombie leapt to his feet and lashed out at Xephos with it's remaining arm. Xephos ducked and stabbed it through the stomach, drew his sword back out and leapt back as Honeydew shoulder charged it onto the ground. He then went to kick it's head in, but unfortunately, Lysander had leapt in the way and stabbed it through the throat.

Honeydew had just enough time to change the direction of his swing, from Lysander's crotch to his thigh.

The blow sent Lysander spinning and landing with a crash on the ice.

"Ow!" he yelled angrily, as he got to his feet and limped back over to the zombie's body.

"Ooo," said Honeydew sheepishly. "Sorry there Skylord, you, ahh, got in the way?"

Lysander drew his sword from the zombie's spine, and slid it into his scabbard, and began to walk around the headland.

"Oi! Listen! It could've been much worse!" shouted Honeydew. "I could've hit you in the place where it really hurts!"

But no-one was listening, because Lysander was walking towards what appeared to be a damaged road extending over the sea of ice, then suddenly ending, like a stone tongue at head-hight protruding from the rocky hillside.

"Oh gods," said Xephos, as he walked over to Lysander "I don't remember this road being here."

"It was part of a project to get a highway from Mistral City to Terrorvale, which is a colony of Mistral." replied Lysander.

"Did you know of this, Peculier?" asked Honeydew, who had run up behind them and stared at the craggy lip.

"I did! I was looking forward to visiting Mistral City more often!" sighed Peculier, as he clonked towards it. "The road is damaged! It's damaged." he croaked huskily as he caressed the tough rock.

"The road _is___damaged, tis a bad omen!" said Lysander.

"Well, only one thing for it!" yelled Honeydew, walking up to Old Peculier, who was still looking at the road. Honeydew grabbed his waist, and lifted him as high as he could. Old Peculier screamed.

"What are you doing, you fool!"

Lysander and Xephos ran forward.

Honeydew groaned; "Get on the road you old codger!" Xephos and Lysander reached out and helped Honeydew to support the old cripple.

When Peculier had scrambled onto the road, Honeydew placed his massive hands on the brink of the road, jumped, and hefted himself up. After this he lifted up Xephos, he hoisted Lysander onto the platform and got to his feet.

As they looked along the road, the heroes saw that the road had huge chunks missing in places, and went through a tunnel in the hill of which it protruded.

"The road's in a bit of a state." said Honeydew

"Well at least it seems to be quite well lit." replied Xephos, as the fellowship walked gingerly along the road, they saw that the tunnel was lit up by lanterns set into hollows in the wall.

"Indeed, it seems as though the Lamplighters of Mistral have been doing their job." ventured Lysander. He examined a lantern. "Although, they seem to have been lit a while ago, surely the Lamplighter would've seen the damaged road..."

They emerged on the other side of the hill and the road turned sharply left, leading them in the opposite direction of the Yogcave.

As they rounded the corner, them came to the foot of a large bridge, spanning a frozen estuary, they began to walk up to the top of the bridge, Xephos in the lead.

He made his way slowly up the icy stone slope, and when he reached the peak saw that the bridges crest was no longer there.

It looked as if the bridge had been bombarded by many tonnes of explosive. Fragments of the cobble stone foundations were strewn across the wide river mouth, as was the hard timber framing, the areas of where landed were cracked and there were also places where there were great holes in the ice, with the frigid water in it's place.

"Oh gods," breathed Xephos as the others slowly sidled up behind him. "The road is quite badly damaged here."

"I hope that the city still stands." groaned Peculier.

"As do I, friend. As do I." sighed Lysander as he made his way back down the the bridge to walk along the frozen water to the other side. He was promptly followed by Peculier, clonking on his bad leg, and Honeydew, helping Peculier.

Xephos looked at the state of the bridge from his high vantage point. The bridge wouldn't have been terribly high, only around fifteen feet. And one of the bridge's pillars, three feet in front of Xephos, whom was standing at the rim of the bridge, was for the most part intact, and was only seven feet from the ground.

Without a moments hesitation, Xephos leapt to it.

He landed quite well, though it took a while for him to regain his balance, he then grabbed the pillar's edge, swung over, and landed feet first on the ice.

He walked around to the side of the bridge, and saw Lysander, Peculier and Honeydew were making their way towards him from the side of the bridge where they had just walked down from.

"Oh my goodness." said Honeydew as he looked up at the bridge when he saw Xephos waiting for them.

"So we're just going to avoid it?" asked Xephos to Lysander.

"We don't have the resources to mend it. So we must." Lysander responded.

They walked in silence towards the other side of the great river mouth, when Honeydew noticed that he could just see the Pyramid that they had crashed into out back towards the Celaeno's crash site. It had lava leaking from it.

"Oh gods, yeah!" said Xephos after Honeydew had told every one of the Pyramid.

"That pyramid where we, well, yeah." Honeydew said.

"Where you what?" asked Old Peculier.

"Nothing of importance!" retorted Honeydew, not unkindly. He and Xephos had found the Pyramid one foggy night, and had discovered that it contained a trial where they needed to leap onto stepping-stones in a lava pool to reach the other side of the mass of boiling magma, and at the other side were three chests. After many days of preparing and semi-serious burns, they reached the other side to find that all it contained were some string a bucket and some other worthless junk. It was all rather embarrassing.

They reached the other side of the frozen estuary, and climbed the icy slope until they were on the other side of the wrecked bridge. Xephos looked over at the Pyramid. It had a huge chunk missing, and was bleeding searing hot lava onto the ice. It's golden tip was also missing, most likely shattered on the ice beside it.

"The world is in peril, my friends!" he said turning to see them standing behind him on the road. "Everything is on fire!"

"Yes. But can we please keep moving? I dare say that if we stay in the same place for too long we shall be attacked! Again!" moaned Peculier. He turned and walked down another short tunnel lit with lanterns set into the stony walls, his splint making an echo chorus down the corridor.

"God what's this?"said Xephos. "It's like a tunnel system!"

"Not really," said Lysander, who had been rather quiet of late. "this is the last tunnel before the City."

"I was beginning to think that this was all Israphel's work!" commented Honeydew as he set off after Peculier, who would not be all to difficult to catch up to. "I mean he blew up the road, he blew up our," he paused. "our home."

Xephos ran past him and Old Peculier, and emerged on the other side of the tunnel.

All about him was a snowy tundra, on his left were a few trees, but to his right it was a vast expanse of white, the sky was already slowly turning a tinge of pink on his left in the east.

Dawn was coming.

Xephos walked along the road, waiting on his friends to come join him. He leant against a lamp post, facing away from the tunnel. Aglow in the lamp-light, he was thinking about what they knew of Israphel, their unknown enemy, the Dark Lord. They hadn't actually seen him up close before, all them knew of his appearance was that he wore robes the colour of midnight, and had skin a whiter tone than the snow that lay before Xephos.

Xephos heard a groan behind him, he spun around, hand on the hilt of his sword.

But it was Peculier, doubled over on the ground, between Xephos and the tunnel, Lysander and Honeydew running towards him. Xephos joined them.

"Please wait...I must rest." Peculier groaned.

"Oh, come on," sighed Honeydew as he ran to his side and held him up. "What's wrong with you now?"

Peculier was puffing like a set of bellows, he was red in the face and was relying on Honeydew to support his weight.

"I must rest." he sighed.

"Alright, Peculier. We shall rest." said Lysander, as he sat Peculier down, back against a Lamp post.

"No,no,no,nonono, no. No." said Honeydew, who was clearly against the idea of waiting about for a Skeletal Archer to turn up.

"I agree." toned in Xephos. "We can't continue this quest stopping periodically to defend an old man. No offense there, Peculier."

"Oh gods, don't say that!" said Honeydew. "You've jinxed us now!"

"There will probably be, like, four zombies, coming at us from different directions to get us." chattered Xephos. He gestured about to the very faintly pink tinged snows of the tundra, and the stout beech trees populating the forest.

"Will you two be quite!" yelled Lysander. "The old man is in a bad, way, he needs rest badly."

Honeydew and Xephos hung their heads like scolded school-children, Honeydew kicked a stone that had come loose off the cobble stone road.

Lysander drew his sword and began to patrol their immediate area, investigating any sound he heard.

Honeydew yawned loudly, and Xephos suddenly realized that none of them had slept, for two days, save when they were unconscious, but that _hardly _counted.

"Do we have any food we could give him?" said Xephos aiming the statement at Peculier.

Honeydew shrugged, "I've got a raw pork chop."

"Well we don't want to make him more sick than he already is." responded Xephos. "I've got three of _cooked_ pork chops. How are you doing for food, friend?"

"Umm," said Honeydew as he delved into his bag. "I've got two raw pork chops?"

"I don't even want to know where those came from." said Xephos. Then something must have occurred very suddenly to Lysander, because he walked right up to Xephos and Honeydew and said: "Heroes, something has occurred very suddenly to me, we have not been properly introduced, I am Lysander."

This took the two heroes aback a little. They then realized that the only reason that they knew his name was because Peculier had shouted it out when they were boarding the Celaeno from their shelter on the Survival island.

"Err," said Xephos, quite unsure of how to react and what to say. "Greetings!"

But that was to be completely overshadowed by Honeydew's response.

"What? No, you're called Skylord. I can see inside your head. You are _Skylord _Lysander!"

Lysander attempted to roll his eyes back into his head and see what was in there, but failed.

Xephos whispered to Honeydew: "I think that it is a title, friend."

"I was _part _of the Skylords, the ruling council of Mistral city."

So he's like a politician. Thought Xephos.

"But with the Celaeno gone, I may be a Skylord no longer." said Lysander mournfully.

"Oh, so Xephos, he's like a Timelord!" exclaimed Honeydew, referring to an ancient Dwarven legend. "He's like a Timelord, but a Skylord."

Old Peculier moaned loudly and painfully.

"Oh gods," said Lysander. "do we need to give him anything?"

"I'll give him some food, he looks as if he could use it." answered Xephos, as he produced one of his pork chops from his satchel.

He walked over to Peculier, crouched down and presented him with the pork chop. "Eat this." he said to Peculier, who eagerly accepted it without words, ripping it to shreds, and hastily gulping it down.

Honeydew seemed eager to help Peculier to recover too, he sidled up behind him, shifted him off the lamppost, knelt behind him and proceeded to tenderly rub his back.

"There we go." said Honeydew as he dug his beefy thumbs into Peculier's spinal cord.

"That feels really good, Thank you, Dwarf." croaked Old Peculier in his croaky voice. "Okay, I think I can make it further." he said after a while.

"There you go!" grinned Honeydew, helping Peculier to his feet.

"Then let us go!" yelled Lysander.

The sky was turning an unmistakable pink in the east over tree tops.

As the four continued to walk wearily along the road, Xephos pointed out how few monsters had attacked them, Honeydew jeered; "Don't complain about the lack of ambushes, lad!"

But Xephos was right. Normally if any living creature weren't under cover by night fall, monsters came down on them like flies to a piece of fresh dung.

"And here comes dawn, as well." Honeydew pointed tips of the tree's, their crests set alight by a glaring pink glowing fire.

"Oh, that is a good omen!" yelled Xephos.

"Indeed, the sun rises!" said Peculier. "And may our spirits do so too!"

"I am am glad that you shall see the spires of Mistral at dawn." intoned Lysander.

"It sounds like a beautiful city indeed." said Xephos. "It must not be too far."

"No, it isn't," replied Lysander. "It can be seen just over this hill."

He pointed to the summit of a tall, gradually sloping hill, the road running right up it.

Suddenly, Peculier and Honeydew fell to their knees grasping their heads, wailing as if all the demons of the Nether were bearing down on them.

"What's happening!" screamed Honeydew, his iron helmet rolled off his head and onto the road. Old Peculier was rolling about whining and whimpering.

"What _is_ going on!" yelled Xephos as he knelt over his friend, Lysander was hunched over Peculier.

"Don't touch me!" wailed Honeydew holding out his hands to stop his friend from touching him. Suddenly, he collapsed on the icy road, lying limp like a rag doll.

"What happened!" Lysander yelled.

Xephos looked up and saw Peculier was also lying flat on the ground in the dawn lit snow, his ragged face looked somewhat peaceful.

"I-I don't know!" flustered Xephos, looking down at his friend, he shoved his hand around his friend's huge orange beard to check his pulse.

It was still beating to a strong rhythm, Xephos called over to Lysander;

"He's just unconscious."

Lysander grunted.

"So how's it going!" said Xephos awkwardly.

Lysander didn't lookup from Peculier. "Not well..."

"Oh..." mumbled Xephos.

Suddenly Honeydew's eyes snapped open and he jerked forward with a gasp. He grasped his friend by his plate-armored shirt's collar, drew his face towards his and whispered: "Where is it?" he let go of his friend's collar and scrambled on his hands and knees, over to the road a few feet in front of him, placed his ear to the ground, and began to rap his knuckles on the ground.

Peculier sat abruptly upwards blustering and yelling.

"The Hole!"

"What in Notch's name is going on!" yelled Lysander.

"There was a hole here," panted Honeydew. "a huge hole. Going right through the world." He turned to face his friends. "First I felt a splitting headache, then I lifted my head and saw the Hole, you two were walking over it as though it weren't there."

"I had the same experience!" yelled Old Peculier, nodding furiously.

"Listen, you two." said Lysander slowly. "There wasn't ever any Hole."

"But we saw it!" breathed Honeydew. "Some kind of...World Hole."

"...wooooooooorld holes..." sighed a deep voice on the wind.

The hair on the back of their necks stood on end.

"Well, I can only think of one explanation for this." said Xephos, he craned his neck to the sky that was turning a blueish tinge

"And what is that?" asked Peculier, his voice hoarse and rough.

"It must be some fell magics of Israphel."

"He doesn't want us to reach the City!" yelled Honeydew, he stood and picked up his helmet and placed it firmly on his head. "We must leave with all haste!"

"I feel better," said Peculier. "Let us go!"

"Onwards." Lysander.

They began to run up the hill, as fast as Peculier could plonk along on his splint. A fine morning mist descended on the landscape. As they ran Honeydew knelt and quickly padded together a snowball from the thawing snow that now lay in only small patches on the road, due to them entering warmer climates. He ran up behind Xephos and playfully biffed the snowball at the back of his head.

"Oi!" yelled Xephos as he turned to confront Honeydew, but the dwarf ran past him up the slope. Xephos gave chase, and as they neared the top of the hill, suddenly his head was split open by an intense migraine.

It was like no pain that Xephos had ever experienced, like a great axe cleaving through his skull from the inside out. He fell onto his back and was rocking from side to side, his head in his hands, daring not to look between his fingers, for he knew what lay there.

Lysander stood over him attempting to hold Xephos still, pulling his arms away from his face. Xephos began to stare wildly at a section of the road ahead and at Lysander as Peculier and Honeydew rushed to his side.

"Oh Notch above! Israphel's got a hold of him!" shouted Lysander. "Xephos, there is no world hole, it's just road, nothing more. Don't look at it. It's just a road!"

Though through Xephos's eyes, where the road was, a gaping pit now lay, it was as if the ground that had just been there had collapsed into the beckoning maw, tunneling down into the earth, growing to an eternal darkness.

Honeydew grabbed his ailing friend by his shoulders and shook him. "Xephos!" he yelled "Don't look at it!"

Peculier was rattling on, yelling things like: "He's seen the world hole, he'll be on the way out soon!"

But Xephos wasn't looking away from the great hole. "He's getting stronger," he breathed. "at first he could only create, but now he's destroying. He's getting in our minds." he ripped his sight away from the pit, and to his friends.

"Israphel's powers are waxing, the world is indeed in great peril!"

And with that he collapsed, the fingers of darkness probed into his mind, and there was nothing more.

Xephos awoke beneath a tree, his back against the trunk, and the ground beneath him. He looked around and saw the sun was higher in the sky, so how long had he been under?

He heard voices, it seemed a heated argument was underway.

"I don't believe you!" yelled Lysander.

"Only his closest friends may utter it!" shot Honeydew back.

Xephos walked on shaky legs over to the road, and squinted up at the hilltop. Honeydew was arguing hotly with Lysander, and Peculier it appeared was attempting to break it up.

"So let's carry on shall we?" jested Xephos cheerfully.

"Aha! So he finally wakes!" said Lysander, who seemed suddenly more cheerful than before.

"How long have I been out, then?" puffed Xephos as he began to climb steadily up the road.

"Two whole hours!" sneered Honeydew. "Seemed that you couldn't handle the world holes like us, eh?"

"So what were you two arguing about?" responded Xephos.

"Oh," replied Lysander. "That is unimportant, but come up here! There is something that you should see!"

Xephos staggered up to the top of the hill and Lysander announced, "Behold! The gleaming spires of Mistral!"

Before Xephos, the road swooped steadily down the hill, and cleaved through a thick, rugged forest of mighty beech trees and up to the walls of a majestic city.

It was more like one huge, beautiful sculpture than a city. From his vantage point Xephos could see that a huge wall encompassed the city, which was full of small wooden buildings, and at it's center, three pools sat.

But it was what was above the City that was truly spectacular.

Huge walkways spanned above the City, connecting towers to floating islands that had great buildings and spires sprouting from them, and waterfalls falling from them, landing in the pools below.

And all of it was shrouded in a shinning mist.

"I am indeed sorry that we did not get to see this at dawn." whispered Xephos.

"I suppose that you shall some time." sighed Lysander. "But we must go, there is much to see!"

"At last I shall once again set foot in Mistral City!" yelled Peculier.

Xephos took off down the road, followed by Honeydew and Peculier, and Lysander, helping the gimpy old man to run.

"There are airships everywhere!" shouted Honeydew, running beside Xephos, when suddenly both were overtaken by Peculier, who seeing the City must've given him a fresh dose of youthful vigor.

Peculier ran awkwardly ahead, and Lysander was attempting to pass Honeydew and Xephos to assist Old Peculier.

"Leave him be!" laughed Honeydew.

"Yes, and I need to talk with you." said Xephos, as he held Lysander back by his shoulder and slowed down. Honeydew also slowed to a swift walk.

"The voice on the wind that we heard when we first encountered the "world holes", what do you make of it?" Xephos asked.

Lysander stopped.

"Oh," he said with an odd expression on his face. "I wouldn't worry too much about that."

"Not worry to much about it?" started Honeydew, but Lysander began to run towards the City again, staring at the shinning towers hanging above Mistral. Unfortunately, due to this, he did not notice the large crater in the roadside caused it seemed by an exploding creeper. He fell right in.

The heroes helped Lysander out of the hole, which had clearly been there a while, and continued to run along the road.

"You were so busy looking at Mistral that you fell right in!" laughed Honeydew.

After a while they saw the figure of Old Peculier standing next to a small structure. They ran towards him and saw that he was standing next to what seemed to be a small wooden shed that sat outside the City entrance with a sign hanging out over the road saying: Guard Post.

Past the guard post lay a great moat, nearly twenty arm spans wide, then then thick wooden walls of Mistral City. Ahead and above them, was a great lighthouse, sitting on a floating rock, behind it were several other floating monoliths, housing all manifestation of structures.

"It's beautiful!" said Honeydew as he gazed, enraptured up at the flying city that was Upper Mistral.

"Wow!" said Xephos. "Check it out! There's a lighthouse up there, and a floating building of some description. It is amazing!"

"Well at least it is still standing." mumbled Honeydew as they ran up to Peculier, who was leaning against the guard post, out of breath.

"It is indeed as beautiful as the day I left."

Honeydew gently pushed open the door of the guard post and looked inside.

"Empty." he whispered, and tiptoed inside.

Lysander turned to Xephos and Old Peculier and said,

"While you were gone, Peculier came to us with ill news from Terrorvale. He told us of the of the dark Stronghold beneath the town." he continued to talk as he turned and began to help the now recovered Peculier towards the city.

Xephos went to follow when suddenly Honeydew poked his head back out of the door of the guard post

"There's some armor in here, should I take it?" he whispered. "No, that's probably a bad idea, to steal from the guards." he said quickly, as if correcting himself.

"Yeah," mused Xephos. "and I have the feeling that they'll be needing it."

They ran out following Lysander, who was still looking towards the city dragging Peculier, and obviously thought that the two heroes were still listening.

They caught up with him as he began to help Peculier to cross the stone bridge across to the city gates.

"So when he arrived with the wild tale of Israphel an the insane reverend, no-one believed him, but I sent a group of warriors to Terrorvale to examine the tunnel under Israphel's grave in the crypt.

But when they returned they reported that the coffin was gone, and there was no tunnel anywhere. Peculier insisted that it had been sealed up, but no-one save I believed him.

You see, my father served with Peculier during the Sand war, and I trust him.

Then the airship, Milatans, docked in the city, with news of a small island in the middle of the ocean, where a tall dwarf and a man dressed in a armored chest-plate were stranded, with a sign spelt out in torches saying: HELP.

Hearing this, Peculier insisted that it was you two, and I traced the Milatans route to the place that the island was most likely to be.

After that, we set off in the Celeano, and after days at sky, I realized that I hadn't packed enough coal reserves to get us all the way back to the mainland, so our only hope was to find you two, and hope, that you had enough fuel.

And, well. You know the rest!" he finished as they were halfway across the bridge, suddenly, Honeydew began to yell and scream.

They all turned and saw he clutching his head, still on his feet, but the psychic attack of Israphel was beginning to overcome him.

Xephos ran towards him, as his friend yelled; "Not this time! You won't get me down! Get outta my head you bastard!"

Xephos reached out to hold his friend still, but he suddenly came to his senses. He stood normally and looked casually about.

Then he yelled: "Ha! He's gone, I fought him out of my head! Take it you Pale-faced Git!"

The others stared at him, He'd actually managed to deter Israphel's mental bombardment.

"Did you see a world hole?" queried Old Peculier.

"Yes, I did!" beamed Honeydew. "But I combatted it!"

"Well," said Lysander. "Lets us get inside the City walls, they are enchanted and shall hold off any more world holes that the fiend has for us!"

"Oh, gods." breathed Xephos. "Let us hurry then!" And the began to jog towards the City Entrance, a gap in the wall, with a heavy iron portcullis.

"Ho, ho!" jeered Honeydew. "See how you run, friend! Afraid of a headache and a hole in the ground!" But he ran as well, eager to see the city, leaving Old Peculier clonking along on his broken leg, and Lysander helping him along.

The two friend neared the gates, but as they were but ten feet from them, a pain like a lightening bolt struck them inside of their heads. The pain was so great that they immediately feel on their faces. But as they fell, they saw the most enormous world hole before them, taking up the entire square foundations of the City.

Just before Xephos blacked out, he felt a pair of shaky hands begin to haul him towards the Gateway, as did Honeydew, only but with stronger, more sure hands. But them both lost consciousness just before the gates of Mistral City.

Honeydew woke up suddenly, face down on the hard, floor of Mistral city. He looked up and saw that Xephos was just waking up as he was. He swiftly got to his feet, as did his friend, to face Peculier and Lysander who were standing before them, looking somewhat disgruntled and relieved at the same time. The high wooden walls of two buildings rose up on either side of them.

"So," huffed Honeydew, as he stretched his back. "How long was it?"

"Yeah," Xephos yawned. "How long were we out?"

"Only seconds!" smiled Peculier as he nursed his splinted leg.

"Indeed," grimaced Lysander. "All it took was for us to drag you across the City threshold, and you...awoke."

"Well, hopefully he won't be bothering us any more." said Honeydew. "Israphel, I mean."

"His powers shouldn't be strong enough to get inside the City." replied Lysander.

"I hope not!" said Xephos. "He's ruining our adventure!"

"Wow!" gasped Honeydew as he looked up. They were in the shadow of a huge floating island, it's mass casting a protective shade on that part of the City. "This is beautiful!" he began to walk down the cobblestone road, between two large wooden buildings, until he was in the City centre.

Three large fountains sat in a triangular shape with a huge lamp post in the middle, and water cascading down from the floating platforms above. All around, majestic wooden buildings stood in large clusters, but the seemed to almost to be cowed by the Sky Platforms above.

"So this stuff was always here?" said Honeydew.

"I guess so." replied Xephos.

"This city is hundreds of years old." informed Lysander. Behind him, Old Peculier was leaning on the edge of one of the fountains.

Someone nearby was humming a tune.

Xephos and Honeydew turned around and saw a figure dressed in white standing outside of what appeared to be a church.

The Church was positioned on the other side on the fountains from the Gates, it was built from exquisitely carved stone, and above the door was an enormous stained-glass window, shaped in the likeness of a plump, red apple.

Xephos walked around the stone rimmed fountain and towards the Church, he was followed by Honeydew and Lysander. They walked past a well and up to the figure, who had his back to them as he tended a small garden outside the Church.

"Oh, here we go." mumbled Lysander. "My friends, this is Father Braeburn."

Father Braeburn turned around at the sound of his name. He was quite a young, handsome man, with flawless olive skin, and slick, jet black hair with huge side burns and a fringe that was combed back over his forehead like an oily wave. The Father was wearing a tight fitting, white jacket that had an embroided apple on the back, and matching trousers with a red trim. He also wore a black belt with an artistic gold buckle, gold rimmed, black lensed glasses, and on his feet, a fetching pair of blue suede shoes.

"Hello Father!" said Xephos cheerfully.

Father Braeburn shot him a dazzling smile with perfect white teeth.

"Why, hello friend!" he replied in a deep, almost mumbling voice. "Welcome to the Church!" He looked up and saw Lysander standing next to Xephos.

"Lysander!" he exclaimed. "You have returned. Praise Notch, that no-good Jasper was running a muck in this City!"

Suddenly, Peculier shouted out over by the fountains.

"I feel weak! Help me heroes, I can barely stand..."

Lysander quickly turned back to Father Braeburn as Xephos and Honeydew ran over to Peculier, who was leaning heavily on the edge of a fountain.

"We shall talk of this later, Father, but now I have business to attend to."

Lysander joined Xephos and Honeydew, who were helping Peculier to stand.

"Come, we must help Peculier to his Father's house!" said Lysander as he relieved Xephos from holding up Peculier.

"His father?" said Honeydew, scratching his beard as Lysander helped Old Peculier hobble along on his bad leg. "How old is he?"

Lysander looked at him gravely.

"Now is not the time or place for such discussion." he intoned.

"Come on old friend." said Honeydew. "I too shall carry you." He walked round to Peculier's left and reached around to his opposite armpit, Lysander doing so on the right. Now Peculier didn't really even need to walk, as Honeydew and Lysander lifted him between them and started towards Peculier's Father's House.

Lysander led them right from the fountains and through a narrow side street in between two vast wooden buildings.

Something very suddenly occurred to Xephos.

"That voice on the wind that we heard after we encountered the world holes for the first time, that was Father Braeburn!" he yelled, the Father's voice was unmistakeable.

"Ah, yes." gasped Lysander as he carted Peculier along. "I knew it the second I heard it, but wanted to see if you could put it together. The Father is a bit of an odd one, but he is the Priest of the Church of the Holy Apple, we saw him tending the garden. He is an extremely pious follower of Notch."

"Also," asked Honeydew. "Where in Notch's name is everyone?"

He was right, as they'd walked through one third of the City and only seen Father Braeburn.

"One question at a time!" yelled Lysander, who was obviously trying to figure that out himself, and getting tired of carrying Peculier.

The sun was setting rapidly when they came to a section of the road where it sprouted another road heading left, called Victoria Street according to a sign on the wall of one of the buildings. They continued down their street towards a ridge that ran up to a more elevated area of the city. They passed under a sign hanging off a small building to their right.

"Grandma Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe." read Honeydew as he and Lysander stopped to rest themselves, leaving Peculier to stand for a while.

Xephos pushed open the door and saw that inside near the back sat a lovely silver haired old woman behind the counter.

"Hello Dear!" called who must've been Granny Bacon, in a high, fruity voice.

Peculier began to make his own way up the ridge as Honeydew, Xephos and Lysander greeted Granny Bacon from the doorway.

But suddenly as Peculier had crawled his way to the top of the ridge, he saw something that made him scream.

"NO!"

"Oh, gods!" yelled Honeydew, seeing that Old Peculier was not among them. "Peculier!"

They all turned and towards the ridge, and up a flight of cobble stone stairs. At the top of the ridge they stood next to Peculier was stared in disbelief at the smoldering ruins of what would have been a very nice house he had there.

Xephos walked forwards and pulled a partially burnt sign from the ground in front of the burned wooden building. It read: Bungalow Peculier.

"My Family home!" sobbed Peculier.

The ruins of the Peculier residence were situated directly next to Grandma Bacon's tea shop, but atop the Ridge.

Despite his broken leg, Peculier drew his sword and began to hack at some boards of wood that were still on fire, attempting to save even a small piece of his home. Xephos and Honeydew joined him Honeydew screaming:

"We've got to save his Father!" he chortled.

"His Father is dead, you idiot!" yelled Lysander.

Inside the blackened doorway, Xephos found a badly damaged portrait of who could only be Daisy Dukes. She was clothed in a purple dress, and her blonde hair tossed over her shoulder, but it was too damaged to be worth saving, so Xephos left it.

"Stop Peculier, It has been burning for days!" shouted Lysander.

"Yes, Peculier." said Xephos, laying his hand on Peculier's shoulder from behind. "I'm afraid that this is unsalvageable."

Peculier turned around, to face Xephos, tears streaking down his face.

"Alright." he sobbed, and allowed Xephos to him out of his roofless house.

Honeydew suddenly came running out with his pants on fire, attempting to pat it out with his hands, which was failing.

"Roll, Honeydew! Roll!" they yelled.

Honeydew dropped to the ground and rolled back and forth until the fire was out.

"Whew!" he breathed.

Lysander turned to Peculier.

"You must rest, you can stay at my house!" he said. He intended to allow the house to burn itself out, which by the looks of it would not take too long.

"Nooo..." said Peculier staring at the ruins of his house, oblivious to what Lysander had said.

"So where is your house?" asked Xephos to Lysander

"I'll show you." said Lysander, and led Peculier along the ridge, parallel to the edge of it.

The part of the City on the Ridge was small, but appeared to be the Garden District, as it consisted of a few large houses placed on a grassy plain that dropped off into the urban part of the city, of which it was separated not only by the Ridge, but by a stand of oak trees running along it.

Xephos walked after Lysander and Peculier, followed by Honeydew, and led them along past two large houses that were connected on their sides to each other. Xephos noticed that their rear was connected to a tall fence, that replaced the City wall in these parts.

"This is a really nice place, actually." said Xephos as he walked along the side of one of the houses towards the fence.

"Well really nice apart for Old Peculier's home that's burnt down." replied Honeydew, as he waited for Xephos at the corner of the house as Xephos walked over to a broken, wooden bridge that was connected to the fence.

Xephos walked up onto the edge of the bridge that used to span over a river below. He looked up and saw the sun dipping under the horizon, casting a faint orange glow. In the dusk light Xephos could make out a sign in the dark, it read:

DANGER

Crumbling Ruins

KEEP OUT

"Old Peculier doesn't have the best of luck, does he?" said Honeydew.

Xephos turned around and saw that his friend no longer stood at the cornerstone of the house. Xephos rounded the corner and saw his friend standing next to the door of the second of the two houses, waiting for him.

"Where is Lysander's place?" Xephos asked as he ran up to his friend.

"They're in here." said Honeydew as he walked up to the door and went through it. Xephos followed, and noticed the sign on the door, it said: Elysium.

"The Elysium?" said Xephos as he walked inside, leaving the door open.

"Come in heroes." welcomed Lysander, beckoning them inside.

"Well this is nice!" commented Xephos as he looked about.

"It's quite a pimpin' pad!" said Honeydew, using more dwarven slang, which made no sense in other parts of the world

It was a quaint, luxurious room, a brick fireplace sat in the corner with a purple rug in front of the hearth, which was cold. Two wooden benches were in the room too, one sat under the bay window next to the door, and the other on the left wall in between it's sister and the fireplace, and a smaller wooden chair sat opposite that. The room also had two long tapestries of landscapes on the walls.

"Has Peculier gone for a lie-down?" asked Xephos to Lysander walking over to a flight of stairs on the right wall. and looking up it.

"Yes, he is up there." said Lysander, looking above.

Xephos ascended the stairs, followed by the others and saw Old Peculier standing in the left corner next to a large double bed, staring out the window, just staring.

"He's not looking terribly well..." whispered Xephos.

"Oh, good grief Xephos!" breathed Honeydew in his best posh voice, that frankly sounded as though he had an extreme lisp. "What, on earth are we going to do? The old man is terribly ill. Look at him, he's all sort of hunched over and knackered and broken, like a toy, that's been dropped, off of a multi-story tower building."

"Peculier." said Xephos to the old man. "How can we help?"

Peculier didn't respond.

"We must not give up hope, friends!" exclaimed Honeydew quietly.

"He needs to rest, Heroes." said Lysander. "Let me give you a tour of the city while he recovers."

"Oh?" replied Xephos. "A tour of the city?"

He walked around to the side of the large bed, and opened up a bed-side cabinet that was sitting there, seeing if he could find something to help Peculier.

"Yes" said Honeydew with his posh voice. "Let us investigate this magnificent city of...what's it called again?"


	3. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 3

Chapter Three: I DEMAND YOUR FINEST BACON!

"You rest and regain your strength, Peculier." said Honeydew, still using his posh voice. "And not just your physical strength, but you emotional strength."

Xephos was putting some supplies in the chest next to the bed for Old Peculier, who was staring out the window as if no one was in the room with him.

"That's my chest that you're going through there." rumbled Lysander at Xephos.

"Oh sorry there Lysander." said Xephos as he shut the lid on the box. He had put his good hunting knife in there, along with a whole lot of other trivial curios that he had been hoarding in his satchel.

Lysander walked back down the stairs clutching the banister as he went.

"You were going through his bed-side cabinet?" whispered Honeydew softly as he began to walk slowly back down the stairs. "Gods know what was in there."

"No, no, it was empty. I just put some stuff in there for Peculier." whispered Xephos back to him.

"Was there a triple-ended-ribbed-nobbler in there?" laughed Honeydew as they walked down-stairs.

"There is much to yet do...Damn my old age!" yelled Peculier upstairs, but neither of them had the foggiest idea what he was talking about.

As they emerged down stairs, Xephos and Honeydew noticed that Lysander was nowhere to be seen.

"What are you insinuating about Lysander?" continued Xephos. "But, there is that purple rug I suppose. But no, let's not go there. Lysander is perfectly fine, he's a straight, upright, man."

It was now that they noticed his absence. "Where is he anyway?"

Xephos yawned, and realized that they had not slept for two days. His limbs now felt heavy, as though lead were growing on them, and without the adrenalin pumping through him his eyelids began to droop.

Suddenly, Lysander poked his head through the front door, looking rather annoyed.

"Well, are you two coming?" he said. "I'm ready to give you the tour of the City."

"Are you bloody kidding?" asked Honeydew, unleashing a stupendous yawn that Xephos thought would dislocate his jaw.

"How can you not be tired?" yawned Xephos as he plonked his way over to one the wooden benches, the one by the fire, shedding his armor and weapons placing them on the floor, revealing his bright red long sleeve shirt with black shoulders. On his left breast he wore a sort of badge shaped like a crescent moon facing downward with a star in the middle.

"Oh, right." sighed Lysander. "I suppose that all the nights that I stayed awake steering the Celaeno that I've become a little de-sensitized to it."

He walked into the room and sat in the arm chair as Honeydew walked over and inspected the fire place, where there were three decent logs waiting in the wide brick hearth.

"I'd light the fire, but I haven't any kindling to get in started." stated Lysander rather sleepily, now.

Honeydew chuckled.

"I have no need for kindling." he proceeded to unbuckle the pouches at his waist where his flint and steel were housed.

Xephos, who had been lying on his back on the bench, head towards the fire, quickly got to his feet and edged towards the exit.

"Careful that you don't miss friend, this house and the most of the city is made of wood!"

"I honestly don't think that one spark without sufficient kindling could burn down a city." said Lysander skeptically.

"Oh yeah?" sneered Honeydew, "Watch this!"

He aimed at the fire place, and struck the flint with bryne-steel tinder.

Bryne-steel is an odd material. It seems very smooth to the touch, but really it is covered by thousands and thousands of tiny, rough lumps. This makes bryne-steel an excellent material for crafting tinders from, but the smelting of the diamond and iron alloy has only been mastered by the dwarves, the secret of which they hide greedily.

As Honeydew struck the flint, all the hard little filaments on the steel created their own spark as they hit the flint, sending forth a great wave of sparks, as if thousands of tinders had struck the same flint at the same time.

The ball of sparks, each a tiny star, flew into the fire place and hit the logs with a deadly accuracy. The logs caught fire instantly and burnt as if they had been doing so for minutes.

All of which had been done in seconds and whist Honeydew had been standing a whole three feet away from the hearth.

Lysander leant forwards, his face a picture of awe, the fire casting shadows over the lines of his face, making him seem far older than his years.

"Aye," chortled Honeydew, "I like to pull that out of the hat every once and a while. Good for parties."

"Sometimes, he pulls it out too often." yawned Xephos. "Once he got bored and set the Yogcave-" a lump built up in his throat. "On fire. But we managed to put it out."

Xephos then sat back down on the bench, lay his head against the arm that was closet to the fire, and propped his feet on the other arm.

Honeydew was really quite a dab hand with the old flint and tinder. Xephos had seen him use it several times on their adventures, including one time, when he set a tree alight from seven yards away.

The fire was letting out a comforting heat that soon filled the room.

"Amazing." breathed Lysander.

"Yep," yawned Honeydew. "Got it as a parting gift from me Pappy."

He then slid his ornate steel into the right-hand pouch, and the flint into the left-hand one. And began to peel off all of his gear, dumping it on the bench that Xephos was not sleeping on. He then crouched down and then curled up on the rug and in no time he had begun to snore. Xephos too was sleeping peacefully on the wooden bench, his red chest undulating as he breathed heavily.

Lysander smiled to himself, he too now was being overcome by weariness, and soon the comforting dark was slipping into his mind, and for the first time in countless days he slept.

Honeydew awoke soon after dawn, the morning light was streaming through the windows, and onto his face.

He squinted as he sat up, and rubbed his eyes as to get the sleep out of them.

"Good morning sleeping beauty!" chuckled Xephos, as Honeydew looked over at him from the bench that he had been sleeping on. Lysander was sitting across from him in the armchair that he had spent the night in.

Honeydew picked up his helmet that had fallen off during the night.

"Mornin' all!" he yelled.

"Ssshhhh!" said Lysander, putting a finger to his lips. "You'll wake Peculier!"

"Sorry," said Honeydew sheepishly. "how is he doing?"

"Well, we don't even know if he's asleep or not." answered Lysander. "We dare not go upstairs incase we wake him. And that would be terrible, he needs all the sleep he can get."

"Oh." mumbled Honeydew. "Well how did we all sleep?"

Xephos laughed loudly and Lysander chuckled, disregarding what they'd just said about keeping quiet.

"Hardly!" said Xephos.

"You were snoring!" chuckled Lysander. "Like an old pig on it's back!"

"Well, how do you know that it wasn't Old Peculier?" huffed Honeydew.

"I doubt that Peculier mumbles: "Jaffa Cakes!" in his sleep!" laughed Xephos.

Jaffa Cakes were a common delicacy of the dwarves, a-sort-of-not-biscuit, (more like a small cake) with a layer of soft biscuit, orange flavored jelly, and topped with chocolate. They had the remarkable ability to partially heal whoever ate one, and Honeydew craved the things, but much to his horror, they seemed to be unheard of outside of the Dwarven Kingdoms.

Honeydew's stomach rumbled.

"On the topic of foods," yawned Honeydew. "What will it take for us to get some?"

"Well, that is the first stop on our tour." said Lysander, he clapped his hands, and stood up, walking toward the door.

The heroes climbed to their feet, and as quickly as they could donned their armor and equipment, and followed Lysander out of the door.

"Where are we going?" said Xephos as Lysander jogged back towards the Peculier residence along the cobblestone pathway that ran between the dewy grass. They followed after him, past the stand of mighty oak trees, up to Bungalow Peculier, where Honeydew held back Xephos as Lysander ran down the ridge and through the door of Grandma Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe.

"Imagine," snickered Honeydew in his posh voice that he seemed to be getting rather attached to. "if Lysander had stopped here and said: "This is Old Peculier's burnt down house."

Xephos and Honeydew both burst into peals of laughter in the mid-morning sun.

"Oh gods!" cried Xephos. "We shouldn't laugh about that!"

"You're right," sniffed Honeydew. "You're right. Where did Lysander head to, anyway?"

"He's down here." said Xephos leading Honeydew down the ridge's stairs to the front of the shoppe. "In Granny Bacon's."

They walked into the Tea Shoppe.

"Oh, man check this out!" exclaimed Xephos.

The floor was a hard flagstone coloured of stormy grey, and on his left was a marble-topped bench facing the wall with four chairs sitting under it, on this right was Skylord Lysander who was standing in front of some kind of table, and further down the room from that were two small pedestal tables that looked as though they were intended for couples. And at the back of the room, sitting behind the table that seemed to double as a counter sat Granny Bacon, her silver hair tied back in a shinning bun, her cheeks rosy and lips pink. She wore a tawny one-piece dress, with an emerald brooch on her breast, and a teal apron.

"Oh, this is more like it!" sighed Honeydew, inhaling deeply through his nose, sniffing the intoxicating aroma of bacon.

"This is the family grill," announced Lysander. "There is always cake here for the hungry adventurer."

"Hello again dears!" greeted Granny Bacon in her shrill, slightly lisped voice. She turned back towards her stove-top behind the counter, but her dark, kindly eyes lingered on Honeydew's bare, muscular chest.

"OLD WOMAN! I DEMAND YOUR FINEST BACON!" hollered Honeydew, clutching his stomach.

"My you're cute ones!" she giggled as she added rashers of bacon to many that were alreadt cooking on her huge frying pan. "Certainly!" she replied to Honeydew. "I can't resist a beard like that!"

Honeydew twirled a segment of his ginger beard in his fingers, and eyes began to twinkle mischievously, as they did when he had flirted with Daisy Dukes in her Terrorvale smithy many months ago.

Xephos and Lysander took a large step back as Granny Bacon bent over to retrieve a plate from a drawer beside the stove, her large buttocks hypnotizing Honeydew.

She produced the plate, and tipped all the bacon in the cast-iron frying pan onto it.

She came around the right side of the counter and presented the platter of crispy, greasy bacon to Honeydew.

She was quite a large and buxom woman, not tall, but...broad. As Honeydew began to practically inhale the dozens of rashers of bacon, Granny Bacon scanned him with cheeky eyes from helmet to boot. Honeydew soon noticed this and looked over at Xephos with an expression that said: She's eyeing me up! She's eyeing me up!

Although...Honeydew didn't seem to mind.

Xephos and Lysander hadn't really said anything, just sort of looked on in discomfort, awkwardness and mild entertainment at the obvious courtship that was going on.

Xephos wondered if they'd have to pay for the bacon, and Granny Bacon was just conning them into debt. He looked up above the counter and on the wall saw a menu bolted onto the wall that stated, among other things that Bacon=1S.

Xephos was unsure of what the currency of Mistral was, or maybe, he thought as he looked at Honeydew and Granny Bacon, it was an exchange of goods and services. It suddenly occurred to him what the S may stand for...

"Now how about a hug for old granny!" Granny Bacon trilled.

Honeydew set down the platter of bacon on the bench and pulled Granny Bacon into a tight embrace. Granny squealed with delight, and hugged Honeydew back, her hands began to slide down towards Honeydew's behind.

"Your salty meat was delicious! Thank you white haired lass!" said Honeydew as he turned Granny so that he faced Xephos and Lysander. Next to her ear he mouthed the words to Xephos:

I think She's my wife now.

Lysander and Xephos looked at each other awkwardly, this was getting out of hand. Xephos, who desperate for something to change the subject, looked feverishly about the room for something to comment on.

Granny and Honeydew parted from their embrace, and Granny Bacon started to feel Honeydew's bulging arm muscles as he flexed them.

"What big, strong muscles! Oh!" She quavered on the "Oh".

Lysander was backing towards the exit, but Xephos was starving, and he saw a delicious looking cake on a stand sitting the counter, that he could use it as a distraction too.

"Saucy!" breathed Honeydew.

"Can we eat this cake?" said Xephos very quickly, as if taking in a breath after holding it for a long while.

"Do you two want some privacy?" asked Lysander, now that Xephos had broken the ice.

"Help yourself to anything here. The cake is especially good!" chuckled Granny Bacon, but she seemed to be directing it at Honeydew.

"Xephos, it's been a long day," said Honeydew, even though it was the morning. "I think that I'm going to, you know, turn in?" Honeydew winked. "Maybe you and the Skylord could go and, be somewhere else?"

He turned and grabbed a handful of cake, and shoved it into his mouth.

"Oh, that cake! It's so moist!"

"Right, sounds like a plan!" agreed Xephos hurriedly, turning and walking _very_ quickly towards the door, followed by Lysander, his hunger suddenly forgotten.

They shut the door behind them as they left.

"Hmm!" grunted Xephos indignantly.

Suddenly, they heard Granny Bacon ask Honeydew:

"Would you like to lick me icing?"

"Oooooh!" came the reply.

Lysander looked at Xephos with something that could only be described us utter terror, and the two of them legged it towards the Fountains.

They reached the fountains, panting for breath, but could faintly here many things falling onto a hard stone floor in the distance.

"I forgot to bring my earplugs!" panted Xephos.

"Urgh!" blurted Lysander as a shiver ran down his spine. "You'd think your friend would stick to women his age!"

"That would be difficult for him." replied Xephos. "He's a hundred and thirty two years old! Not that he acts it."

Lysander grunted

They stood now beneath the largest of the floating islands in Mistral City, the morning light causing the Fountains to gain what little light they could before it was blocked by the great bulk of the monolith above.

"Well," said Lysander, finally after he'd regained his breath. "This is the Centre of Mistral, the platforms above us are what made us a great power in-."

"Mmhmhm!" hummed Father Braeburn from across the fountain outside his church.

"Excuse me," mumbled Lysander. "I must talk with Father Braeburn."

Lysander left Xephos sitting on the rim of the square fountain, staring up at the glittering towers in the morning light and mist.

Lysander walked over to the Father, who was humming to himself and tapping his feet in their blue houses.

"Good morning, Father!" greeted Lysander.

"Hello Lysander!" smiled Father Braeburn.

"Father," said Lysander in a tone of sudden urgency. "The City is empty. It should be full of people, where is everyone?"

The dazzling grin vanished from Braeburn's face like the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

"Well... It was the night that we found Peculier's house on fire." He mumbled, his eyes, even though they were unseen, were darting back and forth. "It was Mrs Miggles who found out about it. You know old Mrs Miggles? The poor dear has never been quite right ever since her husband passed on five years ago, that cat of hers is her only comfort. But anyway, she was on one of her late night wanders about the city, in her pink dressing gown, as usual. She was wandering up Victoria Street when we she smelt smoke coming from the Ridge area.

"She rounded the corner from Granny Bacon's and saw That Bungalow Peculier was on fire. But it wasn't that that frightened her.

"In the rubble stood a man, or a thing that looked of a man, with white skin, eyes that glowed like burning coals, and a face that was vaguely shaped like that of a creeper's.

He was accompanied by a gruff man in a long red coat, and a black leather hat.

The poor thing nearly died of fright, fell on her back screaming, but when she sat up, they were gone.

"All of Victoria's street was awake, even mister Astley, and you know how he can get when he's angry.

"Granny Bacon came out of her shop and helped Mrs Miggles up, and brought her inside for a cup of tea, friends as children, they were! But the next day, Miggles was off down the street, chattering to anyone foolish enough to be around her that the arsonist was..." Braeburn lifted his glasses, to show a pair of deep brown eyes that were staring strongly at Lysander.

"Him, Lysander." Xephos was attempting now to listen from by the Fountains. "They think that Israphel is back, and that he torched the house.

"It didn't take long for the rumor to spread. It started at The Fountains, that's where all the ladies gossip and discuss the like. But soon it spread further, children were getting frightened, parents told them to be indoors by dark, and the men patrolled the walls, they began to see strange things in the night. Creepers with arms, huge zombies, and once a pair of red eyes just watching from the trees.

"The people began to panic. We made a mine field, just beyond the Guard Post, in hope that we would kill one of the wretched monstrosities that were haunting the countryside, but there was no luck.

"Then Helena Bargarda went missing one night, she was a female, err, "entertainer" for men. Not that I would know of such things!

"She was last seen by a client at Snozzi's House, and was going to go give the guards a treat of some sort.

"She never got to the guards, but they heard her scream.

"When they reached the place where they heard the scream, they found nothing but her wig, which was a surprise to _everybody._ But now that someone had actually gone missing, people started to leave the City, which wasn't helped by Jasper, who had taken up command of the City in your absence. The People were moving to Icaria, all in one huge wagon train, the men taking shifts at escorting the wagons, but I have the feeling that not all of them will make it to Icaria, the City by the Wall.

"We still have a small amount of people in the City, but they stay to their homes, and I was sure that they too would leaving, and this City would become a ghost town."

"But now I must interject," interrupted Lysander. "to ask you; the Wizard, is he still here?"

"Why of course he is!" replied Braeburn. "It would take a bribe beyond money to get someone to take _him_ in their wagon, he still dwells in his tower above. But carrying on, now that you have returned, Lysander, we can revive the spirit of Mistral, and repopulate the City! But not like that. Can I help you?"

Xephos had sidled up next to Lysander, failing to inconspicuously eavesdrop on Father Braeburn's tale.

"Hmm? Oh," smiled Xephos apologetically. "Don't mind me! I was just-"

"And this is one of the Heroes who shall help us to rekindle the spirit of Mistral!" laughed Lysander, he grabbed Xephos with one of his arms by the shoulder, and pulled him close.

"One?" smiled Father Braeburn. "And where are the others? I can remember seeing a Dwarf, albeit a tall one, and Old Peculier, are these your Heroes?"

"You bet!" grinned Xephos.

"But where are they?" asked Father Braeburn.

"Peculier is ill," said Lysander. "and Honeydew, the tall Dwarf is, err, he's inside Gran-"

"Ah, let's not go there!" interjected Xephos, smiling tackily at Father Braeburn, who was looking bewildered.

"Let's continue with our tour shall we?" said Xephos to Lysander.

"A good idea!" agreed Lysander and the two of them, walked quickly away, leaving Father Braeburn with a "what?" expression on his face.

Lysander led Xephos left from the Church of the Holy Apple, and to the outside of a building that was no more than a wooden block with a flat stone roof.

"Snozzi's House, for your pleasure." said Lysander awkwardly.

Xephos looked up at the sign bolted above the door, it read:

_Snozzi's House_

_of Adult Pleasure _

_Entertainment._

Xephos carefully nudged open the door, not quite sure of what to expect, but inside was not really anymore than two smooth wooden poles on a flagstone stage at the back, and a "special" looking chair in the left corner.

"Dammit!" shouted a rough voice from outside. "I need a couple of hours to recharge, Xephos, be reasonable!"

Xephos looked behind him and saw Honeydew, looking pale, and quite "slugged out", with what appeared to be bacon grease smeared all over his chest.

"Ugh," said Xephos. "Granny was too much for you then?"

"Well, actually, she-" began Honeydew, but he was cut off by Lysander and Xephos both plugging their ears with their fingers, and yelling:

"LA!LA!LA!LA!LA!LA!"

"Don't want to know! Notch above my friend! First Daisy, now Granny, talk about a womanizer! Try to keep your sword sheathed!" shouted Xephos, fingers still in his ears. "But look at this..." he said as he pulled his fingers out.

He pushed Honeydew through the door of the Pleasure House.

"Look at these stripper poles!" laughed Xephos.

"Oh my gods." breathed Honeydew, taking a look at the "special" chair.

Honeydew walked back over the threshold of Sozzi's House, looked up at the sign above the door, and giggled.

"I think you've had enough of that sort of thing." said Lysander sternly. "And let us continue with our tour."

Xephos followed Lysander around the left corner of Snozzi's House, and before them lay a large sports court of green turf, with lines of white painted along it's edges, and a low net running along the center. Oddly though, a lone cow stood in the court, chewing on the grass, her black and white hide shinning in the sun rising above the City wall that the ran along the left side of the court.

"Oh look!" exclaimed Xephos, walking onto the court. "It's like a tennis court! Oh my gods."

"Heh, look." giggled Honeydew. "The cow is playing tennis!"

"This is the sports court," announced Lysander. "It is one of our recreational activity areas in the city. The nets can be put up higher, for a game of volley-ball, put at this hight for tennis, or taken away completely for a spiffing game of football."

Honeydew walked over to the cow and attempted to shoo her off the court, but when she didn't budge, and and just looked up with benevolent eyes, Honeydew drew his sword and smacked her rump with the flat of the blade.

She reared up on her back legs mooing and then galloped away towards the Fountains.

"Don't do that to Daisy!" gasped Xephos as he walked over to a lock-box that he had spotted next to the net on the right side of the court, and immediately adopting the cow as Daisy, thinking of it as a good name for a cow.

"What?" flustered Honeydew, thinking of Daisy Dukes. "Daisy...Daisy's not a cow!"

Xephos paid no attention to him, knelt and opened the box, inside were two wooden rackets, at least twenty leather-bound balls, and nestled down the bottom amongst the balls was what appeared to be a diamond bladed, straight edged battleaxe. Gods know why it was there though.

Xephos pulled out a racket and a few balls, and began to walk over to the far side of the court, but not before intercepting his Dwarven friend, challenging him to a game of tennis, and informing him of the diamond axe.

"A diamond axe!" Honeydew breathed. He walked over to the box, got his own racket and balls, and swiftly stowed the axe into his satchel, which was now becoming rather cluttered. Thankfully Lysander didn't notice this act of thievery, as he was leaning up against the wall of the Pleasure House, in anticipation of the upcoming match.

Honeydew walked over to his side of the court and yelled to Xephos;

"Who shall serve first then old chap?" in his posh voice.

"I shall!" shouted Xephos as he threw a ball into the air and smacked it with his racket.

The ball whistled through the air like a small meteorite, landing solidly and giving a bounce.

Honeydew reached for it but missed by a country mile.

"My turn again!" laughed Xephos, as he backed into his right-hand corner, Honeydew did the same.

Xephos produced another ball, and smacked that mightily over to Honeydew's side, followed by another, and then another, all of which Honeydew missed.

"Oh gods!" he gasped as he tried to hit another, but missed it too. "Racing! Stop it!"

"That's not how you play tennis!" yelled Lysander.

"Yes!" gasped Honeydew, who was looking even more tired than before. "That's not how it's done!"

"That's game one!" laughed Xephos. "I'm going to serve from this side now," he moved to his left-hand corner, and Honeydew followed suite. "Thats fifteen love!"

"Okay!" growled Honeydew, as he bent low, legs apart, like a predator fit to pounce.

Xephos served again, but this time, the ball hit the net.

Honeydew laughed, it seemed that Lady Luck had looked kindly upon him.

Xephos served again, but it was another net-ball.

"Wooo!" yelled Honeydew, who's large amounts of metallic paraphernalia were glittering in the sunlight.

"Dammit! That's a double fault!" Xephos swore, he wasn't too clear on the rules of tennis but he knew that was bad. "So that's fifteen all?"

It continued on in this sort of fashion for a while, and Lysander was sitting with his back against Snozzi's House, shaking his head in despair.

"I'm not very good at tennis." said Honeydew as Xephos ran out of balls, he had only hit one, and that had sailed over the wall, and landed with a splash in the moat.

"Well, it's your serve!" yelled Xephos. He was feeling confident, the first half had gone well for him, and he expected to do the same with Honeydew's serves.

But it turned out that he was no better than Honeydew was.

His first serve, Honeydew hit the net, but he was a quick learner. He proceeded to hit a large number of jump-serves over to Xephos's half.

"Oh yeah!" said Honeydew triumphantly, as he aced Xephos for a fifth time.

"I don't know if we can actually hit these!" puffed Xephos as he dived and missed another ball.

"I do not think that there is anyway for either of you two to conceivably loose on your turn!" shouted Lysander.

"Nah!" spat Honeydew. "This is _male_ tennis! None of that hitting back carry-on!" he hit his last ball. "Who-ever serves wins!"

The last ball smacked into the ground as Xephos dove for it, he landed face down in the turf, and lay there panting for a long while.

"Well maybe we can continue our tour now?" Lysander asked.

A door nearby slammed.

Xephos looked got to his feet and looked towards where he heard the door slam, which was where Lysander seemed to be leading them.

It appeared to have come from a small building behind Snozzi's House of Adult Pleasure and Entertainment. Lysander led them down an alleyway behind Snozzi's, that had the entrance to the building, which had a grubby sign above the door reading:

_Priusbar's Opium Hut_

_No Minors_

Xephos peered through the window in the door, and saw an odd character whom was dressed in a similar garb to Lysander, except it was a reddish pink, and he wore a brown tunic over it. He appeared to be wearing goggles like Lysander was around his bald forehead.

"Oh, Notch above." whispered Lysander. "That's Skylord Jasper, he's been running the city in my absence, apparently he's made a right lot of trouble."

"Oh, gods." said Xephos as he stepped closer to the door, where he saw wreaths of smoke whirling through the room from Jasper's mouth region, growing thicker and thicker. "He's and opium fiend!"

And before Lysander could stop him, Xephos pushed his way through the door.

He was engulfed by the smoke as he entered, and as he waved the smoke that was sneaking down his throat like snakes, out of his face, Jasper's face loomed out of the pungent smoke.

He blew a mouthful of smoke into Xephos's face through his fat, red lips, that were framed by a thick, black handlebar mustache.

He had a large hooked nose, and wore his goggles over his eyes, to stop the majority of the smoke getting to them, but even through the foggy lenses, Xephos could see his bloodshot eyes that appeared to be lined with eyeliner.

"LEAVE THIS PLACE!" Jasper bellowed in a thin, nasal voice.

Next thing Xephos knew, he was being pushed towards the exit of the Opium hut.

Honeydew and Lysander were standing outside trying to peer through the now fogged up windows, when suddenly, Xephos came falling out of the open doorway, which shut behind him.

"Good gods he was creepy looking!" gasped Xephos as he got off his buttocks and leaned against the back wall of Snozzi's, coughing out the opium smoke in exchange for air.

Lysander was staring at the door, looking troubled, but Honeydew was standing next to his friend, who was still coughing up the noxious fumes.

"Well, Xephos," Honeydew said. "we do have a problem."

"What?" wheezed Xephos. "What problem?"

Honeydew stood back to reveal he was holding the small, diamond pickaxe.

"I can't go in there," he said softly. "I'm a miner!" he giggled.

Xephos laughed.

"Do you see what I did there?" laughed Honeydew. "Do you see what I did there?" he nodded his head at the sign.

"What a terrible fucking joke!" replied Xephos.

"He's not a very friendly person, Jasper." said Lysander, who hadn't even flinched at Honeydew's joke. Xephos sensed that there was bad blood between Lysander and Jasper.

"No," agreed Xephos. "He is not a friendly person, he just yelled at me!"

Honeydew, tried to push his was through the door, but it kept closing, as if the thick smoke concealed someone pushing it back.

"GET OUT SIMPLETON!" yelled Jasper in his distinctive voice.

"Don't try to get in there, he's getting his opium fix!" whispered Xephos.

"WHERE IS DRUGS!" hollered Honeydew at the door, as he rammed it, but Jasper must've locked it because there was no way that a mortal could hold back such a barrage.

"Oh dear me, what was that?" queried the velvet voice of Father Braeburn, from somewhere nearby.

Lysander led Xephos and Honeydew down to the end of the alleyway that ended at the Church, which split in two directions, going left and right.

Xephos looked left, and caught a brief glimpse of something green jumping around in the open area beyond the alley.

He walked down the left path, past a large, stone-hewn building behind the Church, and inside a fenced off area, a creeper was staring at him, and attempted to leap up and over the high fence, but fell back onto the wooden floor within the enclosure.

"Gods, there's a creeper." mumbled Xephos, which led him to wonder where it had come from.

Lysander ran past Xephos, and had a double take when he saw the creeper.

"Where did you spring from, my green friend?" he said as he walked over towards the creeper, but kept a safe distance.

Xephos turned back, he stood next to the large stoney building, and whilst waiting for Honeydew, who only now was rounding the corner of the alleyway, and he gazed up at the remarkable floating islands, towers, and walkways that lay above the other parts of the City, for the towers seemed to not float above this region of Mistral.

Directly above the opium bar bobbed a tall tower that was only a few yards slimmer than the island it sat atop, and a thin current of water seemed to flow down from it and into the opium den, probably to be carried away by some internal plumbing.

Honeydew ran up to his friend, looking rather miffed.

"He wouldn't let me in." he grumbled, referring to Jasper.

"Well what did you expect?" Xephos said absentmindedly. "What I want to know is how the hell do we get up to the top?" he nodded at the Sky Platforms. "I want to go up there!"

"Is that a creeper?" asked Honeydew, completely oblivious to what Xephos had said.

"Yeah, look." acknowledged Xephos, he turned to the creeper, which had hopping up and down into the fence, trying to get to them, and explode in their faces.

"What on earth is a creeper doing in there?" asked Honeydew, taking a tentative step closer to the creeper, which hissed softly.

"I don't know, what is this thing?" said Xephos, as he walked around outside of the fence, that ran alongside the City wall, forcing Xephos between the two. "It's like a walled off garden or something." he called to his friend, who was only one yard away from the fence and the creeper, whom he was leading back and forth along the edge of the fence.

Xephos walked around to the opposite side of the fenced off area where Honeydew was playing with the creeper, and as he rounded the left corner, he saw a sign that read:

KEEP OUT

DANGER

MINE CLOSED

DANGER!

"Ah!" he yelled. "Keep out, danger, mine closed!"

The voice of Father Braeburn sailed across the wind, singing an odd song.

"I wonder why the mine would be closed?" pondered Honeydew as he jumped in the air, with the creeper following suite, loops of slime flinging off of it and onto the fence. It had become a game of Simon Sez.

"Hmm..." grumbled Xephos as he walked round to the other side of the closed mine, where to his left was a fenced-off crop garden, and in front of him stood Lysander, leaning against the large grey building, saying nothing.

Xephos walked over to the gate of the crop garden that faced towards Lysander, opened it and walked inside.

The stems of wheat danced in the faint breeze like golden fingers waving at Xephos, who, thinking that they may come in useful, knelt down and began uprooting two handfuls of wheat, but then thought better of it, and left them to die in the dirt.

Lysander, only now realizing what was going on, yelled at Xephos;

"That's the town's food supply!" he scolded furiously.

"Sorry Lysander." apologized Xephos, holding up his hands in the universal "whoah there!" gesture.

"Jump around!" said Honeydew over by the fence, Lysander and Xephos looked over to see him leaping in the air and the creeper following. "Jump around! Jump around! Jump up, jump up, jump up and get down!" on the "down!" he ducked down, and the creeper stooped to follow him, rearing it's grotesque face.

Xephos and Lysander stepped warily back, sure that at any moment it could explode.

Lysander ran around towards the front of the large grey building, he said:

"The Blacksmith is here, unfortunately our resident Smith is on holiday to Terrorvale at the moment."

Xephos stopped abruptly as he ran after Lysander, and Honeydew stopped bouncing.

_Could Lysander be referring to Daisy?_ they both thought, as Lysander walked around to the entrance of the Blacksmith.

"Uh-oh." said Honeydew, as he and Xephos ran around the Blacksmith after Lysander.

"That is not good news." stated Xephos, as they ran around to join Lysander at the sheltered entryway.

The enclave was made of stone, and before them were two large double doors with cast iron hinges. On the right wall of the enclave was another wooden sign, this one's letters were stylized with swirls of iron and nailed onto the heavy wooden frame. It said:

_Dukes Smithy._

Below it hung another that read, in hasty text:

_CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE_

Honeydew gasped.

"Daisy Dukes! That was her name!" he stammered, pointing at the sign.

Lysander looked slightly puzzled, and Xephos, his curiosity once again getting the better of him, tried the door, which of course was locked. So he drew an arrow slowly and inconspicuously from his quiver, while Honeydew asked Lysander:

"When you say Duke Smithy, do you mean Daisy?"

Xephos took the arrow by the flint head and shoved it into the key-hole.

"Is this her smith?" Honeydew continued.

Xephos jiggled the arrow about until he heard the lock click.

"It's her Fathers." Lysander responded.

"I wonder if we're allowed in?" questioned Xephos and pushed open the door. He stepped inside the smithy, the wooden floor covered in dents, burns, and splinters which made Xephos suddenly very thankful for his boots.

The Smith was somewhere in between humble and luxurious, a huge brick fireplace with large bellows stood against the wall to his right, and anvil sat nearby, a furnace and a workbench lay opposite each other by the fireplace, and before Xephos stood a large chest.

"What? How?" flustered Lysander, seeing Xephos inside the previously locked blacksmith.

Xephos threw open the chest, and looked inside, but all that was there was a few torches, some rocks and a flint and steel connected by a string.

"Get out of there!" scolded Lysander as Honeydew wandered off to the other side of the Blacksmith.

"Sorry again!" said Xephos, he walked back out of the smith and shut the door behind him, pulling the arrow out of where he'd left it. The door clicked shut behind him, and he walked off to join Honeydew by the right side of the smithy, as Lysander shook his head once again in dismay.

Xephos walked over to Honeydew who was staring up at what appeared to be a huge notice board.

"Oh gods, what is this!" gasped Xephos.

Honeydew giggled at one of the signs on the board.

"This is like a kind of Notice Board!" Xephos read one of the signs.

_Mrs Miggles has_

_lost her cat._

_Reward offered._

"Oh lord," murmured Lysander, as he joined them. "Now she's lost the cat too."

"Did you hear, Xephos?" said Honeydew, he turned to face him. "It's Daisy's Dad's place!" he pointed at the Blacksmith.

"I know." replied Xephos with a furrowed brow. "Do you think that he went looking for her, or to visit on holiday?"

"Oooohhh." droned Honeydew.

"Uh-oh." said Xephos.

"He did not specify what his business was." rumbled Lysander.

"Well that doesn't bode well." sighed Xephos mournfully.

Honeydew read aloud a line of appalling graffiti scrawled on the sign that made Lysander cringe but Xephos laugh.

Honeydew read aloud another, that said:

_Kittens for_

_sale _

_See Mrs Perrywinkle_

Honeydew let out a shrill, high-pitched "Aaaawwwww!", as he did whenever he saw something that he thought was cute or "lovely".

"Here is the Message Board and the Lumber-Mill." announced Lysander, gesturing beyond the message board to a cluster of stone buildings framed with wood and lit up with torches.

Xephos walked over to the front of the Mill as Honeydew read aloud more notices, and Xephos stared up at the high windows atop the Mill, glistening in the midday sun. He pushed his way through the door, that was strangely unlocked, ignoring the sign above the door that warned people that diamond cutting tools were in use.

Inside was rather boring, and was no more than a mess of benches and other work areas.

He walked back outside of the building, to see Honeydew walking towards another of the buildings in the Lumber-yard, directly behind the Message Board, a huge building crafted from stone.

Xephos walked after Honeydew, who after reading a sign that was bolted onto the side of a hollow that ran through the stone building to the other side of the Lumber-yard.

"Wow." said Honeydew, as Xephos ran up behind him, Honeydew turned and ran back towards Lysander, who was standing impatiently next to the Message board.

Xephos, not intending to keep them waiting, quickly read the sign. It read, in gaudy, red text:

_Mistral City_

_Lumber Inc._

_Part of Jasper_

_Holdings Group._

This surprised Xephos, as it showed that Jasper was wealthy enough to have his own holdings group.

Xephos turned and ran towards Lysander and Honeydew, who were walking around the corner of the Message Board. As Xephos ran around it, he saw Honeydew looking up at the rear of the Church, which had an enormous stained glass apple.

"Is this the Church?" said Honeydew as Xephos and Lysander joined him.

"Yeah," replied Xephos. "It's good, Isn't it?" secretly, Xephos was surprised that Honeydew had not seen the window when they had come out of the blacksmith, for it lay directly before there.

"Oh my gods..." sighed Honeydew. "It's amazing, it's an apple!"

"This is the cemetery." said Lysander.

Honeydew and Xephos looked over towards Lysander, who was standing next to a long, low fence behind which was a green field-like area that was dotted with slate tombstones and crypts that were faced towards a stone path that ran through the center.

"So this is like a graveyard?" asked Xephos to Lysander, who suddenly ducked down below the fence, and gestured that they did the same.

Xephos and Honeydew crouched down as Lysander pointed down the path, and they saw a plump figure walking towards them from the other side of the cemetery. It took Xephos a while to realize that it was Skylord Jasper.

"Who is that?" whispered Honeydew, as he began to stand up.

Lysander reached across Xephos and pulled Honeydew back down.

"That's Jasper again, I suppose that this is the first time you've seen him head-on." Lysander murmured.

As Jasper got closer the companions saw that he was holding a bouquet of opium poppies, and they began to worry that he would see them crouching behind the spindly fence. But Jasper turned right, towards the Church, which naturally was connected to the cemetery, knelt and placed the flowers on a grave that they couldn't see from their angle. Jasper stood up without saying a word, wiped a tear from his eye, and somberly trudged away from the scene.

Xephos, Honeydew, and Lysander stood and walked beneath a wooden archway that marked the entry and exit points of the graveyard. They began to sneak towards the grave that Jasper had been visiting, but Honeydew slowed and began to read the names and statements carved into the cold rock of the tomb stones, all of which were square, and framed with flowers planted there by mourners.

"DAVE! YOGNAUT. He had the balls." read Honeydew, saying exclamation mark where it was fitting.

The others looked at it with a peculiar expression, and Honeydew knelt and mumbled a quick prayer to him, the most of which was undecipherable, save the "Amen" at the end.

Xephos carried on down the path and read out a few more names and statements, most of which were ironic, or tragically hilarious.

"Fellofalot." he read. "He fell off...allot." Xephos and Honeydew had to suppress a round of laughter as Lysander looked on sorrowfully, as if he knew Fellofalot.

Xephos moved on to the next one, reading it aloud, he said:

"Biritoff. Drowned in the Pool of Life." Xephos chuckled. "Oh gods, that's ironic."

Honeydew laughed out loud this time, getting a sharp glance from Lysander's keen eyes from beneath a pair of very bushy eyebrows. Honeydew went to the right side and began to examine some more graves.

"Samras." read Xephos. "'Twas a creeper that ended him." he cringed, there was nothing funny about that, and he dreaded to think of what lay in the coffin below.

"Whoah!" yelled Honeydew, who stood before a grave that lay under one of the Church's long windows. "Xephos, Xephos! Check out this!" he nodded furiously at the grave.

Xephos ran towards Honeydew, who had Lysander next to him, and looked at the grave. It read:

_Reverend John._

_Missing,_

_presumed undead._

On the top of the crypt lay a small bouquet of opium poppies, freshly cut and placed as though by a lover.

"So Jasper knew the Reverend?" mumbled Xephos gloomily.

"Why, yes!" answered Lysander. "They were quite, err, "chummy" you could say."

Xephos thought back to the day in the mausoleum beneath Reverend John's church in Terrorvale, where the reverend went insane and attacked them with his ceremonial sword. Xephos had killed him, but they'd left his body on the floor as they'd ventured down the hollow inside Israphel's grave, so it was possible that Israphel could've re-animated the corpse.

Xephos shook his head as he pushed past Honeydew to read the next tombstone.

"Pastor Gumbert. Should not have taken a bite." he read. "Oh gods, do you think that has something to do with, ah, The Church of the Holy Apple?"

"The apple?" mused Honeydew, as he walked past the first row of graves on the left side, and was reading them to himself. "Yeah..."

"Pastor Reynolds." murmured Xephos silently. "Has preached his last preach." He turned and saw Lysander walking after Honeydew who was studying a tombstone next to a pool of water that fell from a water fall that from a strange dirt structure above in the Upper City that resembled a three-dimensional diamond.

Xephos went to turn and follow when he noticed Father Braeburn staring out of the tall church windows, smiling, but his dark glasses hiding his emotion otherwise. Xephos raised his hand in a single handed wave, and the father nodded back.

Xephos finished his turn and walked towards his friends, passing in-between the graves of DAVE! YOGNAUT and a fellow called Birituff, who apparently had died of old age.

He walked up behind Honeydew who was looking thoughtfully at a grave.

"What's this?" asked Xephos, looking around his friend's large bulk at the grave.

"I'm not sure..." Honeydew mused, scratching his hairy chin.

Xephos stepped around his dwarven friend and looked at the grave.

It seemed just as all of the other had, a slab of white grey rock with the letters chiseled ornately into the face, and framed by a reef of living flowers laid down by sad family members. But it was the words that didn't make sense.

It read:

_Michael Barrymore's_

_Career._

It was beyond either of them who this Michael Barrymore was, even more so to what his career was doing inside a coffin in Mistral City. Xephos went to ask Lysander just this, but he had wandered off and was kneeling at a grave, whispering a prayer. They decided against interrupting him.

Xephos continued down that same row of graves, reading the text engraved upon them. And Honeydew wandered over to a small, depressed grave in the corner of the graveyard, caught in the shadow of the stand of trees next to the Ridge, and a floating walkway above.

It was covered in a small forest of weeds, but was obviously was grudgingly maintained. As he approached the grave Honeydew noticed the tombstone was no more than a round river stone, with large, capitol letters roughly banged out on the stone, as if the grave had been prepared in a hurry.

Honeydew's eyes nearly leapt out of his head when he read the jagged text.

"Whoah!" he yelled. "Xephos?"

"What?" Xephos called from a tombstone three yards away.

Honeydew motioned with his head for him to come over.

Xephos walked over to the ragged grave, and stood aghast at the words on the grave.

_ISRAPHEL_

_WE DO NOT _

_SPEAK OF HIM_

"Oh gods. Oh gods! What!" flustered Xephos, Lysander walked up behind him. "Is there, like, another one called Israphel?"

Xephos crouched down and ripped the weeds off the slate top of the grave, drew his sword, it's blue light casting erie shadows across the second Israphel's grave. He pushed the glowing blade between the slate and the ground, and pried it open.

"Do we have to dig under this as well?" Xephos swiftly levered open the top of the grave and tipped the flat stone onto the side of the grave.

"What are you doing!" shouted Lysander furiously.

"What _are _you doing?" asked Honeydew, stepping back with Lysander. "You've just desecrated a grave!"

"Sorry!" said Xephos. "But look!" he summoned them forwards, to look into the grave, which from where they were standing they could not see into.

Unsurely, Honeydew and Lysander stepped forward, not sure what to expect. But it was nothing, it was literally nothing.

The grave was empty.

"Cover it up!" ordered Lysander, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.

Honeydew and Xephos set to work heaving the flat rock back onto the grave.

Honeydew, puffed:

"I can't believe you did that!"

"Well what did you think was going to be under there?" heaved Xephos, as the rock fell over the empty dirt hole with a thud. "A skeleton?"

"Well, I can see the logic behind it, but still!" replied Honeydew, dusting off his hands and walking after Lysander, who was looking at some more graves in the "Michael Barrymore's Career" row, Xephos followed.

"We just had to check!" he said, but he was really thinking about how Israphel could have two burial sites, one in Mistral, one in Terrorvale.

The plot was thickening.

A moment later Xephos was standing between two graves, that appeared to belong to two brothers, Dagron, and Dargon. He walked forwards to examine two newly prepared open graves, next to another waterfall that fell from above.

"Oh gods!" Xephos cried. "Honeydew, check this out."

Honeydew, followed by Lysander, walked up to the open graves, the smell of moist soil was strong here, proving that the graves were recently dug. Honeydew looked at the tombstones that sat side-by-side to each-other, and the words made his heart freeze.

the one on the right read:

_Xephos_

"_Goodbye, friend."_

And on the left carved with the same amount of finesse as the first, said:

_Honeydew_

"_AAAAAAAAARGH!"_

"What is this?" asked Lysander.

"Well it's in your bloody city's cemetery!" spat Honeydew. "So maybe we should be asking you!"

"It is obvious to whom did this." rumbled Lysander, as Xephos sat against the fence next to their graves on the opposite end of the cemetery that they'd entered.

"Who?" asked Xephos, but he had a good idea.

"Israphel, of course." Lysander said.

Honeydew flinched.

"I wish you wouldn't say his name!" murmured Honeydew.

"Shhh!" said Xephos, holding his hand to his ear.

"You fear him so much that you cannot bear for anyone to utter his name?" growled Lysander.

"Shhh!" said Xephos more insistently.

"What?" whispered Honeydew.

A faint grunting and squabbling was coming from Honeydew's grave.

Xephos got off the fence and cautiously walked over to the cusp of the grave, and peered over the edge.

"Uhh, Honeydew." said Xephos. "There is a pig and a duck in your grave."

"What?" The Dwarf walked over to his grave and knelt on a pile of slate that would be used to cover the grave, and looked into the grave to be greeted by the sight of a pink pig and a mallard that had obviously fallen in and couldn't climb or fly out.

Lysander walked over and looked inside the grave as well.

"Where did you come from?" he asked the two animals in the hole.

"Well," sighed Honeydew. "at least I know that there is a Heaven in the after-life." and with that he leapt into the grave between the duck and the pig, which began to move in a _very_ awkward way against Honeydew's legs, and the duck was leaping up and down, trying not to be crushed by the dwarf's bulk.

Honeydew grunted.

"It's a little early for that." said Lysander distastefully.

Xephos was laughing at the at the pig and Honeydew.

"Okay." he chuckled. "So you're basically in Heaven."

Honeydew joined in with the laughing.

"Should I just cover you up?" asked Xephos, he walked around to the pile of slate.

"Oh, jus', jus' give me a minute," panted Honeydew. "Jus' give me a minute!"

"Did you have enough time with Granny?" asked Xephos. "Let me just cover you up." He added playfully, as he heaved a small piece of slate over onto the top half of Honeydew's grave, covering up the duck and half of his head, as Honeydew laughed his beard off.

Xephos was about to place a second piece on to cover him completely when Honeydew, recovering his sanity, said:

"Hey, I can see someone up there, Xephos."

Xephos dropped the slate, which cracked in half on top of the the one he'd already laid down.

"Where?" Xephos asked, following his friend's gaze up to the odd tower that floated above the Church, just in time to see a small figure in deep blue robes disappear inside an external doorway connected to a precarious walkway that ran around the tower like a wisp of vapor.

"There's that weird tower, that weird floating island with a tower." stated Honeydew. "Okay, this is starting to piss me off."

Xephos looked down at the grave just in tim to see the pig come sailing out of it and through the air where it landed two yards away. Honeydew crawled out of the hole, his back covered with bill-like bite marks, and he was followed by the presumed culprit, the duck.

"There we are! Thank you!" said Honeydew as he kicked the pig, which squealed and ran between the tombstones and out the exit they'd come through.

"Gods, how do we even get to that bloody tower?" swore Xephos. "Look at it, it's not, like joined to anything! Maybe you need to, I don't know, get an airship up there," he said as he noticed a hot-air balloon tethered to the Lumber Yard roof. "I have no idea."

"Oh my gods, look!" jabbered Honeydew, as he and Xephos walked between the graves, he'd noticed Father Braeburn looking at them through the window of the Church. "It's Father Braeburn just staring out at us! With his sparkling smile."

The Father was looking through the tall window at them, and Xephos grew worried that he would've seen them tearing up the grave, but if he did, he didn't make anything of it.

"He's looking awesome!" said Xephos. "I like Father Braeburn!"

Suddenly Lysander came alongside of them, he'd long since walked away in disgust to the opposite entry-way that they'd come through during the Pig Incident.

"I shall show you the Sky Tower, you seem to be interested in what is above."

"Finally!" breathed Honeydew.

"I am interested." said Xephos. "Let's go!"

So Skylord Lysander led them out of the wooden archway, that brought them back to the fountains, led them left to an road that led to Victoria Street, and led them to the Sky Tower.


	4. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Proper Quest

"So it's the Sky Tower..." said Honeydew as he and Xephos followed Lysander down the cobble stone road of Victoria Street, Lysander was well ahead of them, but the two of them were in no hurry, it was nearing evening, and the sky was turning a peachy pink. Honeydew pulled a square paper-wrapped parcel from his satchel, and proceeded to unwrap what turned out to be a slice of cake.

"Where did you find that!" cried Xephos. Lysander looked back from up ahead.

"Granny Bacon." said Honeydew around a mouthful of delicious looking cake. "She told me: "I knew you had a sweet-tooth the moment I saw you!"

Xephos shuddered, but his stomach groaned, he had hardly eaten today, only a large bun that he'd kept in his satchel after they'd seen Israphel's second grave.

"Let's go!" he yelled and began to walk more quickly after Lysander, Honeydew in tow.

They came past a house with a long bay window and a sign next to the door reading:

_The Astley_

_Residence._

Honeydew continued to jog ahead, but Xephos suddenly stopped and called him back to the The Astley Residence.

Xephos had good reason for pulling him back, for as he'd passed the window, he'd seen a flash of green as something hurried down the stairs, and was staring back at him from within it's lavish living room.

Honeydew ran back towards his friend, whom was standing transfixed in front of the tall wooden building.

"Wait what?" he asked "What?"

"Look at the door." said Xephos very slowly as Honeydew walked up to it. "It says Astley Residence, and there is a creeper, living in it. Oh gods, look."

Honeydew walked over to the window, and looked in to see a rather tall creeper, standing on a floor that was covered in moldy drops of goo dropped by the excreting joints of the creeper, whose face was stuck in the signature scream of the creeper.

Lysander had ran back to them to see what all the fuss was about, and as he joined them, Mr. Astley charged towards the window, hissing like it was fit to explode like a stick of huge green dynamite.

"Oh gods oh gods oh gods!" yelled Xephos as he backed up against the wall of a house on the other side of the street, where Honeydew was already standing, as a precaution.

Lysander, however, was standing right up by the wall, looking at Xephos and Honeydew as if they were being frightened by no more than an insect.

The creeper did not explode.

"Um." said Honeydew as he pulled his arms away from his face.

"Should we just leave him in there?" asked Xephos to his friend quietly.

"I think that it's best." grunted Honeydew, who'd walked up to the glass as Mr. Astley walked towards his fireplace. "That's a very nice house I have here." he giggled, using his talented voice-morphing skills to change his creeper "voice", a deep, soft and slightly lisped voice, and he took on the position of voicing the creeper's inner thoughts. "Sure would be a shame if anything were to happen to it!"

Xephos and Honeydew collapsed into a fit of laughter. The phrase Honeydew had just uttered was an old dwarven saying, used by the dwarves to interpret what they believed creepers would say, if they could speak, although Honeydew had adapted the saying from: "That's a very nice house (or everything) you have there." to "That's a very nice house I have here."

"What's wrong?" asked Lysander. "Mr Astley is a proud member of society."

"Is he a reformed creeper I wonder?" whispered Honeydew to Xephos.

"I don't know!" breathed Xephos, as he watched Mr. Astley tap curiously at the hearth of the fire place with a blackened tarsal claw.

"Is he a reformed creeper?" asked Honeydew as he Xephos walked slowly past the Astley Residence, and spotted a gap between the Astley house and another.

"Yes." replied Lysander as Xephos walked down the gap between the two houses towards what he thought was a bin of sorts, as he got closer he saw in the torchlight that scrawled across the length of the bin were the white words:

Trash

Can

"I wouldn't go inside..." warned Lysander.

"No, I wouldn't either." laughed Honeydew.

Xephos peered inside the bin, it was full of dead flowers, prunings, a couple of broken arrows, two small bags of sodden material that may've been sulphur, and a package wrapped in paper that reminded Xephos immediately of the to-go cake that Honeydew was given by Granny Bacon. The package didn't even look as if it'd been opened, Xephos snatched it up and unwrapped it, proving that it hadn't been opened. Inside were two thick rashers of bacon, cold, but still presuming good for eating.

Xephos ripped into the bacon and was done in a few short seconds, the salty bacon did a fair amount to quell his hunger.

"Rummaging through the bins!" exclaimed Honeydew, as he and Lysander walked past the gap.

Xephos laughed.

"Yeah I'm sorry, but I just can't help myself!" Xephos began to run down the last stretch of Victoria Street, towards the cross-roads that led to Granny Bacons.

"I found some bacon in a bin, though!" Xephos as he stopped to allow Honeydew and Lysander to catch up.

"Ugh! Gods!" gaped Honeydew as he Xephos followed Lysander back round the corner towards the Ridge.

"I think that it's okay to eat!" said Xephos as Honeydew paused outside of Granny Bacons, as if contemplating wether going inside, but he had no choice, as Xephos hauled him away from the door before he could do so much as knock.

As the two walked up the stairs leading up the Ridge, a voice that sounded as though it was suffering from a sever blocked nose and phlegm built up in the throat, exclaimed from somewhere above.

"Abra Kadabra!"

"Oh Notch, here we go!" shouted Lysander from out side the Elysium.

An explosion resonated through the city, the noise caused all to look up as if expecting a wall of debris to come flying into them, but no such thing happened.

"Cripes!" yelled the same voice. "That didn't work. Back to the drawing board!"

Somewhere down by the church, Father Braeburn mumbled to himself:

"Oh dear, not another one of Fumblemore's spells again." he got back to polishing the stained glass windows.

"WHAT WAS THAT BLASTED NOISE YOU OLD FOOL!" shouted a voice that could only belong to Skylord Jasper from somewhere far across the city.

Honeydew and Xephos walked down towards the Elysium, which they could see Lysander emerging from with a long length of rope wound around his shoulder, probably after checking on Peculier. He shut the door firmly behind him.

"Who was that?" the two asked.

"I'll explain later, but now. Behold!" Lysander gestured down the cobble stone pathway past the Elysium. "The Sky Tower!"

He pointed towards a large stone tower next to the oak stand. It reached high up into the dusk sky, the stone walls were a good one hundred and ten yards into the air, it's entrance was a stone doorway that protruded outward, with a heavy wooden portcullis in-front of the heavy double doors. The outside of the tower was adorned with cross-shaped windows, stretching one on top of the other up to the top of tower, which had heavy clefts cut into the turret that ran around the edge.

"Sorry down there!" said the same voice from above, rather faintly.

"Oh gods!" murmured Xephos. "Look at this thing-"

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Honeydew from somewhere behind Xephos.

"It's good isn't it-" said Xephos as he turned, but saw that Honeydew was actually standing to his left, and wasn't even looking up at the Sky Tower.

Where the wall of the Elysium ended, a long high wooden wall took it's place instead of the fence on the other end. Honeydew was standing at a point in the wall that it was parallel to The Sky Tower, he was staring at a large mural on the wall, painted on with an array of flowing color depicting the scene of a man with tawny hair and a glowing sword standing before a black frame, filled with a rippling purple light. At the man's side stood a dwarf, ginger of beard, gesturing up at the portal, wielding a diamond pick in his gloved hands.

"What the?" blithered Honeydew. "What? What? What?"

"Wow!" yelled Xephos as the sun began to set over the spires of Mistral. "Look at this!"

Lysander walked over, looking troubled when he saw the sign.

"How dashing!" said Xephos, walking up to the mural, sword drawn, and posed in-front of it according to the picture, that showed him with the dull edge of the sword on his shoulder, and the other arm at his side as he looked up at the Portal.

"How, how? What, What?" blustered Honeydew, looking from Xephos to the mural in disbelief.

"Draw you pick!" said Xephos, intending for them to recreate the scene in the picture.

Honeydew drew the pick from his belt, and held it in his right hand as he pointed up to the Portal in the picture with the other.

"Tales of our exploits have obviously been heard across the land, Honeydew!" Xephos said as they both held the pose, with Lysander looking on in amusement.

"Really?" said Honeydew, giving out a bit of a gasp of a laugh.

"I don't know." sighed Xephos as he stepped out of position, and looked up at the large mural. "Maybe. But it is pretty awesome."

Xephos looked up at the top of the Sky Tower, the darkening sky turning it to a shadowy gunmetal.

"So I guess this must be the way up, then." he stated, as he walked towards the door, followed by Honeydew, leaving an oblivious Lysander staring at the mural as he thoughtfully rubbed his chin.

"Shall we just go in?" continued Xephos as he pushed open the door and walked inside the inside of the tower, followed closely by his dwarven companion.

The tower contained no floors other than the ground one and the roof, a wooden stairway that ran from the left side of the door and wound around the inside of the tower all the way to the top, where it emerged onto the roof.

"Let's get up there, then!" yelled Xephos and he had just begun to walk up the stairs, when Skylord Lysander ran through the doorway looked up at Xephos with a look that stopped him in his tracks.

"Out tour is over." said Lysander darkly. "You cannot go up there unless you are a Skylord."

"Oh." said Xephos as he slumped back down the stairs and followed Honeydew back out of the doorway, terribly disheartened, as they'd dearly wanted to see the Upper City. Lysander ushered them out of the Sky Tower.

"It's like out of bounds." stated Honeydew.

"Even for heroes?" wondered Xephos aloud.

"Ask him! Ask him!" pestered Honeydew as the walked out of the alcove under the tower, Lysander was shutting the door behind him.

"Even for heroes like us?" asked Xephos as Lysander walked out to join them.

"It's like trying to get into a club!" whispered Honeydew.

"But please! Listen!" said Lysander urgently. "Old Peculier is sick, and has been getting weaker. When I was inside I checked on him. He hadn't slept a wink! His leg hasn't gotten any better, and he's very groggy."

"What can we do to help?" asked Xephos.

Honeydew turned and looked up at the top floor of the Elysium, specifically, the window of which Peculier had been staring out of. He could faintly see the silhouette of the old man in exactly the same place they'd left him, staring out into the night.

"He was once a powerful knight, but seems old before his time." continued Lysander.

"He was a knight?" said Honeydew in surprise.

"Oh gods!" swore Xephos.

"I fear that his time in Terrorvale has poisoned him somehow." grumbled The Skylord, looking up at Peculier.

"Oh dear." murmured Honeydew. "Like a Taint," he shook his head. "The Taint of Terrorvale."

"Oh yeah." mumbled Xephos. "After all it made Reverend John go mad, didn't it?"

"We will be in need of Peculier's strength if we are to defeat..." said Lysander. "Israphel."

Somewhere in the distance, it appeared that a storm had blown in, as a symphony of distant thunder rumbled with fury.

"We will need him!" shouted Xephos.

"Did you just hear thunder then?" quipped up Honeydew. "when he said Israphel." There was no thunder this time, however.

"I think we will have to be careful when mentioning that name," said Xephos. "It causes bad stuff to happen."

Xephos cleared his throat.

"What do you suggest, Lysander?" he asked. "How would we cleanse him of the taint, is there some sort of holy fountain of youth?"

"Medicine?" offered Honeydew. "Oh there are the Fountains!"

Xephos was beginning to hop from foot to foot.

"Like in alchemy?" he floundered.

"You have heard the explosions," said Lysander after thinking for a long while. "they came from the Wizards tower, he is wise and will know that to do."

"Bugger!" shouted the voice that apparently belonged to said Wizard.

"Okay..." said Xephos. "Is that the the tower up there," he nodded into the sky that lay beyond the oak stand. "That we are not sure about?"

"Unfortunately," ventured Lysander, rubbing his chin again. "with the Celaeno gone, we will need to build a bridge across."

Xephos walked in between the trunks of two huge oaks, and saw that the oaks were at the top of the Ridge behind the cemetery. He crept down the slope on all fours and at the bottom he stared up at the wizards tower, it was most certainly not connected to any land by any means, save the long stream of murky water that fell from the top of tower, and into apparently into the roof of the Opium bar.

"So I guess that people don't mind us just building random bridges then?" said Honeydew from behind Xephos on the Ridge, his expression troubled as he looked up at the tower too.

"I suppose not." mumbled Xephos as he scrabbled up the Ridge to Lysander who was standing over in the exactly same place where they'd left him, looking as though he was in complex thought.

"Do we need to go upstairs, then?" Xephos asked him, with a snide expression. "But since we aren't Skylords, then how can we?"

"I shall give you temporary Skylord licenses, allowing you to access the Upper City."

"Oh." said Xephos. "Thank you, Skylord." Xephos gave him a sort of nodding bow.

"Huzzah!" chortled Honeydew, punching the air.

"So is that it?" asked Xephos, "Can we go now?"

"One second, I'm doing the paperwork." responded Lysander, he pulled two sheafs of parchment, a board for pressing on, and a chunky pencil from his pack, that he'd seemed to have got from inside the Elysium, He then began to scrawl quickly on the parchment, pressing against the board.

"I'm not sure how it works," whispered Honeydew to Xephos as Lysander continued to write out the license. "Is there a badge? Do we get to wear weird goggles? Do we get a uniform?"

Xephos laughed silently, trying not to disturb Lysander.

"You should ask!" he replied.

"Girls like a man in uniform." stated Honeydew quietly.

"Is there a uniform?" Xephos asked the Skylord.

"Do we _get_ a uniform?" said Honeydew.

Lysander didn't reply, he merely stood and continued to scribble out lines of text.

"Can we have some music, Honeydew?" asked Xephos, as Lysander finished one of the licenses, and exchanged it for the one beneath it.

"Do do do do do, doo doo doo do, do do do, or goggles?" said Honeydew hopping out of his song, which he soon picked up again, after Lysander didn't respond. "Or a leather loincloth?" he said again to attempt to get Lysander to speak. He didn't.

Honeydew continued his song, and Xephos sat with his back against the wall of the Elysium, as the night began to well and truly set in.

Suddenly Lysander tossed the board and pencil towards the graveyard and handed Xephos and Honeydew a piece of parchment each.

"Oh?" they both gasped in unison.

They examined their Skylord Licenses, it was covered in swift, elegant text saying things like:

"_I, Skylord Lysander, hereby allow Honeydew the Dwarf to enter the Upper City of Mistral by means of a Temporary Skylord License..."_

"Here we go!" exclaimed Honeydew.

"Aha!" said Xephos. "Let's go!"

"Yes." yelled Lysander. "Come, we must hurry!" he ran towards the door of the Sky Tower, pushed it open, and began to run up the stairway.

Honeydew and Xephos followed him up and around the wide, railless stairway, spiraling up towards the Upper City.

"Heard a zombie!" panted Honeydew at the midway point.

"Yeah, so did I!" shouted Xephos back down to his friend. "Be careful, this is a bit of a dodgy stair."

"It was a zombie, a zombie!" Honeydew murmured as he followed his friend up the wooden stairs.

Xephos looked up to see Lysander emerge through a hole in the roof above him, and quickened his pace to catch up with him. Soon he emerged through the roof and back into the cool night air.

He walked to the edge of the roof and leant against the fence that bordered the edge of it. He was on the side that faced towards the wizard's tower, and to his right floated the hot-air balloon that he'd seen before-hand, tethered to the lumber yard.

Honeydew ran up and saw his friend with his back to him, leaning against the rim. Xephos turned to Honeydew (whom he heard sneaking up behind him.) and said:

"Look at this! This is epic!"

Honeydew looked up to see Lysander walking along a thin, fenced walkway afloat in the sky, adorned with torches to light it. He turned and noticed Xephos hadn't seen them leaving, as he was still looking down at the tiny graves side-by-side in the graveyard.

"Hurry along, friend!" he called to Xephos, who looked up to see them walking up a small stairway, and going straight along the walkway.

Xephos swiftly ran after his companions, taking no more time to admire the fantastic view about them. After he'd ran up the stairs, to his left was the strange Dirt-Diamond structure, but Xephos continued to run after Honeydew along the flat area of the walk way, when he noticed the enormous double-enveloped Airship docked on a lower walkway below them to the left.

"Oh, gods look!" Xephos called, getting Honeydew attention. "It's that bloody massive double-airship, the Milatans, or something is what Lysander called it. The one we saw on the Survival Island.

"So was it this one we saw?" said Honeydew, stopping at a point where the walkway they were on branched of to another that went right. Lysander turned and walked along this one. "Was it this or another one?" mused Honeydew.

"I don't know, maybe." said Xephos as he waited for Honeydew to carry on, as there was barely room to pass someone on the platforms. "This one apparently reported us or something."

"I bet that one wouldn't have crashed!" yelled Honeydew as he walked after Lysander, whom was someway along the next of the walkways.

Xephos laughed as he followed him, the two of them walking cautiously, as if a gust of wind could topple the entire walkway.

They came to the end of the walkway which stopped on a floating island with a tall, square based tower on it. To the left of the island, appearing to bob to-and-fro in the air, was the island with the Wizards Tower.

It was an odd sort of building, the external walkways swirled around the cylindrical shape, that changed between being made from cobblestone and solid timber. The ground surrounding the tower was a small portion of long wild grass and flowers, given only a few yards before it dropped over the edge over Lower Mistral. It was tipped with a cap of white marble, forming a dome that appeared to shine in the moonlight. It was a proper wizards study.

"This is the wizards tower then?" yawned Honeydew. It was looking like a sleepless night again.

"Yes," said Lysander. "that is the wizard's tower over there. His name is Fumblemore, and he hardly leaves the place, we have to ferry his food up to him."

"So how are we too get across?" asked Xephos. "You said we will have to build a bridge, but we have not the time nor the materials."

"This is where you need to think outside of the box, my friend." said Lysander, as he walked purposefully towards a previously unnoticed tall, leafless elm tree perched close to the sheer drop of the cliff before where Fumblemore's tower floated, its naked branches stretching towards the stars as if hellbent to grasp them.

"Well," said Xephos following Lysander, while Honeydew just stood back in bewilderment. "What has that tree got to do with anything?"

Lysander just smiled good-naturedly, and whist holding his rope that he'd pulled it off of his shoulder in one hand, he slung it high up around the tree's trunk with the other, slipping the end of it through a loop in the other and tugging it to ensure that it stayed secure against the tree.

"Tell me, Xephos." Lysander sighed. "How high would you say that this elm is?"

"Easily twenty-five yards." replied Xephos.

"And how long is the gap between here and the tower?" said Lysander, with raised eyebrow.

Xephos looked at the gap, estimating the distance.

"About eighteen to twenty yards?" he guessed.

Lysander nodded.

Something inside Xephos's head clicked, it was as if all of the little cogs in his mind had started to move after they'd been jammed.

"We're felling the tree to form a bridge?" cried Xephos, looking at Lysander as though he were mad.

"Ooohh! A chance to try out me new axe!" exclaimed Honeydew, pulling the axe from his belt, it's ice-blue edges catching the moonlight.

"This is madness!" yelled Xephos, peering over the edge and noticing that the gap was above the Church, if the tree were to fall, it would smash the it. "You could crush the church!"

"Then we'll just have to be more careful that we don't let it drop, that would badly damage my reputation." replied Lysander cooly. "Relax, it'll be fine."

"Yeah!" yelled Honeydew, fondling the axe. "Don't be such a baby! That rope is looking pretty secure, can we get chopping now, Skylord?"

"You wont!" said Skylord Lysander. "We need your dwarven strength to help Xephos hold the rope, I'll be doing the cutting."

"But, but!" stammered Honeydew with quivering lip as Lysander pulled the axe from his grasp, and handing him the rope.

"Xephos, get the rope too." said Lysander as he walked towards the tree, axe at the ready as Xephos walked behind Honeydew and grabbed the rope with a sense of foreboding.

"Keep the rope taut and dig in those heels!" called Lysander. "If we get this wrong, you could go careening over the edge and onto the Church!"

Xephos and Honeydew did as they were told, digging their feet firmly into the tough dirt. Xephos couldn't see how Honeydew seemed so relaxed, he seemed to be almost awaiting the great burden that would soon come upon their shoulders. The Dwarf's suspicions of Lysander seemed utterly forgotten.

"Ready?" asked the Skylord, the axe poised to cut into the fair wood of the tree.

"Just go!" shouted Xephos, getting rather annoyed. "Every second we wait the more tired we get!"

Lysander brought down the axe with great might at the tree's roots, the fine blade slicing through the tubers like a shear through dry wool, the flange inflicting great gouges in the wood. There was no doubt that Honeydew could've finished the job more quickly, but Lysander's slow hacking insured that the load was distributed slowly upon the two friends.

The great tree was beginning to tilt, and the load on the two was becoming greater and greater. They braced themselves lower to the ground, the weight becoming indeed very great when the tree reached one quarter of it's decent. Lysander was hacking at the roots as if to not separate the tree completely from the land, but leave a sort of hinge connecting it to the ground.

as the tree reached half way through it's trajectory, it became obvious that it would land right on the rim of the Tower's island, no short. But the weight was now nearly unbearable, Xephos's muscles were burning, and were his friend not there to support most of the weight, he would've been flung into the abyss along with the tree. But that is not to say that Honeydew was not in pain either. Indeed the tall Dwarf was crouching low, his feet far in front of him, shredding through grass as the load grew in weight. On top of all this their grip was failing.

Lysander swung the axe at some more exposed roots, stretched taut and tight, when suddenly the tree (which had been supported mainly by those roots.) lurched forwards with great power.

Honeydew was flung forwards as the tree crashed down in a symphony of ripping roots and cracking branches, he released the rope, but unfortunately Honeydew's grip was the only thing keeping Xephos from flying forwards.

Xephos maintained his vice-like grip as the tree's top slammed with an all-mighty crack onto the ground at the rim of Fumblemore's Tower, but the power of the falling tree had pulled Xephos forward with great power, and he was dragged forwards along the grass and still holding the rope, he fell over the edge of the island.

Honeydew stared in disbelief at the spectacle that had just unfolded before him. He'd just witnessed his best friend tumble over the edge of the island and into the sky above Mistral.

Xephos had been right, the idea with the tree was a death trap. A tears began to run down his chiseled features. But suddenly his sorrow turned to anger. A deathtrap formulated by Lysander, if he'd wanted to kill them and make it look like an accident, he could've done so in no better way.

Honeydew's suspicions of Lysander rushed back to him accompanied by a wave of rage. The murderer had just killed his friend, now he would pay.

Honeydew pulled himself to his feet, and turned to see Lysander standing solemnly at the foot of the tree axe in hand.

Honeydew drew his sword from his back-scabbard, and rushed Lysander, knocking the axe deftly out of his hand, and grasping his collar as he pointed the tip of his sword at Lysander's throat.

"Wha-" began Lysander, but he was to be interrupted.

"GIVE ME ONE GOOD RESON WHY I DON'T SHOVE A LIT STICK OF DYNAMITE DOWN YOUR THROAT, MURDERER!" roared Honeydew in Lysander's face.

"It's wasn't me!" shrieked Lysander. "I would never kill Xephos, or anyone, without reason, for that matter!"

"But you did have reason, didn't you?" whispered Honeydew, pulling Lysander's face closer to his, so they were almost nose to nose. "To get him out of the way for your master. Israphel!" Honeydew spat the word "Israphel". "You knew that this would kill at least one of us!"

Lysander seemed to regain a little courage at this point, setting his jaw and staring into Honeydew's eyes, he stepped backward.

"I am no agent of the enemy." he intoned, his face alight with the lights from the city far below. "I would sooner take my own life than take that of an innocent or noble other."

"Quite a show." growled Honeydew, his ginger mane bristling. "But as sure as I am that the sun sets every night, and the sea is fathomless, that bloody well wont bring Xephos back to life!"

"Silence!" shouted Lysander, in a very serious manner.

"I will not be silent over my friend's death!" yelled Honeydew, his eyes filling with tears again. He bent to pick up the axe, brandishing it in his other hand.

"No, really! Sshh!" Lysander hushed, holding one finger to his lips and the other to his ear.

Honeydew listened, and he could faintly hear a sound from somewhere near the fallen tree.

Honeydew dared not hope.

He ran to the edge of the island, and peered over the rim, and there, swinging side to side on the rope, like a spider on a piece string hundreds of yards above the city, was Xephos clinging to the rope as he spun dangled above the lights of Mistral, his chest-plate aglow with the light.

"Help!" he yelled up to Honeydew and Lysander.

"You're alive, friend!" cried Honeydew in relief.

"I wont be for much longer if you don't get me up!" Xephos yelled back. "I can't climb this damn rope!"

From their eyrie, Honeydew and Lysander could see blood running down Xephos's hands, and he had his knees clamped around the rope firmly to give him more grip.

"Don't try to climb!" called Lysander, cupping his hands to his mouth. "We'll haul you up!"

"Hurry!" Xephos called back up. "I can't hold for long!"

"Do not talk, friend!" said Honeydew, like a cautious mother. "You rest!"

Honeydew turned to Lysander, his expression that of deadly seriousness. He'd just thought that he'd lost a friend, he wasn't about to have it happen for real.

"We need to get to the rope." said Lysander evenly, trying not to rush his thoughts.

"So why are we standing around?" yelled Honeydew, and turned to set foot on the fallen elm. He seemed to lock into placed as soon as he set his first foot on it.

It was a thick old thing, the elm tree, at least two yards wide, Honeydew could walk over such things in his sleep, but the stakes were higher this time. He felt Lysander put his hand on his shoulder.

"Do you want me to take point?" Lysander asked. "I have far more experience in this sort of thing."

"No," sighed Honeydew, staring ahead at where the rope was tried around the circumference of the tree. "I have the strength to haul him up, I must do this."

"But surely you do not wish to fall?"

"I am not worried about that." said Honeydew, turning theatrical. "For there is a saying of my people, a phrase used in times of dire need, joy or sorrow full, it binds us to our very souls. Light or dark, bad or good, it guides us. Words that make the spirits of any who stand with us rise."

"And what is that?" asked Lysander.

"Follow me!" yelled Honeydew at the top of his lungs, leaping at once onto the sturdy trunk of the once mighty tree. "I'll lead thee way!"

Honeydew walked along the length of the tree at a speed the Skylord did not believe, the dwarf was almost running.

Lysander decided that the dwarf was surely mad. He then set off after him at the same pace.

Xephos groaned as he peeked down below him, seeing the Church of the Holy Apple far below, and what appeared to be the figure of Father Braeburn staring up at him. His hands were running with blood from rope burn, and all the heavy gear that he wearing wasn't helping him either. Meanwhile, above him, Honeydew and Lysander were negotiating the branches that stood between them and the rope.

Honeydew snapped a large bough that stood in his way with a deft twist of his wrists. and the rope, that was at the mid-way point of the tree, was before him.

Honeydew grabbed a large branch near it's base, and using it as a hand hold, leant over the edge of the tree, and grasped at the rope.

"Xephos!" he called down. "I'm pulling you up! Be strong! I'll have have you up in no time!"

Xephos looked up, his face covered in dirt marks but his clear blue eyes were staring up at his friend from about twelve yards down the rope.

Honeydew braced himself against the branch and steadily began to haul up his friend, hand over hand he grabbed the fibrous rope, and Lysander, standing beside him, was waiting to assist him in pulling up Xephos.

But Xephos was beginning to lose strength, already he'd slid about three feet down the rope, giving him about six more feet of it dangling beneath him. The blood from his hands was causing him to slip, and it was mainly due to his knees clenching the the rope with all of his remaining might. During the fall that he'd still managed to hold onto the rope, but he'd nearly pulled his arm out of it's socket by doing so. He could feel the rope tugging him upward into the starry sky, and as he looked up he saw that he was no more that four yards from the tree. Lysander was learning over the edge, holding onto the branch with one hand, and reaching out with the other.

As Honeydew tugged him closer to the the tree, Xephos reached out to grab Lysander's hand, but his grip failed as he took one of his bloody hands off of the rope to grab at it.

He began to slip off into the open air, when suddenly Lysander reached forward and grasped his bloody wrist, in a similar manner to how Honeydew grabbed him days ago in the Yogcave.

Lysander hauled Xephos up over the edge of the tree, draping him over the trunk, legs one side, head and arms over the other.

Honeydew patted his friend on the back.

"You nearly lost it, there!" he laughed. "You had us going for a while! I thought that Lysander was a turn-coat again!"

"Again?" asked Lysander.

"What did I tell you about misinterpreting things?" groaned Xephos, massaging his shoulders.

"Well, we are almost at the Wizard's Tower, so I see no need to stay on this precarious bridge any longer." said Lysander.

"Agreed." answered Xephos trying to pull himself up onto the log, but Honeydew needed to help him before he could succeed.

The companions steadily made their way along their makeshift bridge, and fought their way through a thicket of twigs and bracken once they reached the end of the tree at it's head of branches. As they set foot on the island, the huge stone walls rearing up before them, they noticed that they were not on the side that the door to the tower was on.

Xephos forced his way ahead and walked around the left side of the tower to inspect it, the edge of the island was only mere feet from tower to edge. But all that lay on the left side was the stream of water flowing down from the top of the tower.

Xephos peered over the rim.

"Is that the Opium Den?" he asked. "The water flows into the Opium Den."

"Careful!" whispered Honeydew as he too looked over the edge.

"Don't touch that water," warned Lysander. "you don't want to know where it's been."

"Ergh!" the two squirmed as they retracted from the water, all sorts of horrible visions of an emptying cauldron full of things like eye of newt and tooth of wolf.

"Shall we go round to the front door?" said Xephos, back against the wall of the tower as they edged their way around the back of the Tower and back towards the tree, where Lysander led them to the right.

Trampling over wildflowers and grass, they arrived at the door, facing back towards the Sky Tower.

There was a small wooden jetty jutting out from the doorway, which was as elegant as the rest of the tower, with a glazed circular window, and an ruby set into the knob.

Lysander opened the door and walked inside, followed by Honeydew and Xephos.

"Oh, my, _goodness!"_ breathed Honeydew in appreciation.

The interior was indeed very spectacular. It was beyond anything that they'd ever seen before.

The walls for five yards high were lined with bookshelves, littered with volumes of all different shapes, sizes, colours and bindings. But up beyond the bookshelf the cobblestone walls rose many yards into the air, where eventually a wooden ceiling marked the floor of the next story. On the right was a stairway that ran up the wall for ninety degrees, and jumped through the middle of the Tower, splitting into two walkways that led to doors that inevitably went outside.

The floor was made of tough glass that showed the white marble that lay beneath. Opposite the doorway was a desk with a burning candle and a ink-pot and a quill.

"Wow!" gasped Honeydew.

"Oh, wow!" echoed Xephos, gazing in admiration up at the ceiling. "This is a proper Wizard's office isn't it?"

"Office?" said Lysander. "Nay, the wizard is normally up the top, in his office. How are your hands?"

Xephos balled his fists feeling them sting.

"Stings like fire burns." he sighed. "It's also bleeding a little."

Lysander pulled some bandages from his pack and Xephos allowed Lysander to bind them around his stinging hands as Honeydew browsed the bookshelf at the rear of the room, pulling on volumes, trying to find a lever to a secret chamber of sorts.

"Right, in his office at the top." chattered Xephos as Lysander finished, and followed by Honeydew, walked up the beam-less stair way.

This was easy enough until the stairs came off the wall, leaping out into the middle of the tower. Although all of them were good balancers, they took extra caution to prevent them toppling down onto the glassy floor, which now looked very hard and unforgiving.

When the stairway reached the direct center of the room it split into two stairs, one continuing straight ahead, the other branching off to the left. Of the two paths that split in either direction, Lysander led them along the one that went straight ahead, leaving the one that went left, it's exit above the door they'd come in.

He opened the door leading out to outside, turned to the others and warned them of the heights. He then led them out into the crisp air hundreds of yards above the city.

The stairs coiled around the Tower like a snake, yet it did not make physical contact with the tower save the doors that led to them. It looked unbelievably flimsy and precarious, with no walls on either side, and no supports, leading them to assume that it was kept aloft by magical means.

"Oooo!" quavered Honeydew as he took one tentative step after the other walking up the steep stairway.

"It's a bit precarious!" said Xephos at the mid-way point above the main door below, as he watched Lysander practically bound along the walkway that coiled around the tower a serpent of wood suspended in midair.

"Careful!" whispered Xephos as he walked hands practically on the stairs, but out of his peripheral vision, he could tell that the view was quite spectacular. He stopped and looked up briefly to admire it.

He could see out towards the snow covered path that led to the Yogcave, and out far towards land that he'd never seen before, mountains capped with lush trees to his left, and a snowy forest to the east. As Xephos followed behind Honeydew, who was nearly at the door of the Office, he saw the peachy sky rising in the east.

He blinked. Had it really been a whole night?

Honeydew walked inside the doorway after Lysander, and Xephos only at the two-thirds point quickened his pace to that of a cautious jog.

"Gods, how high are we?" asked Xephos as he walked through the open doorway at the highest point in the tower, the white polished marble dome of the roof glistering in the early dawn. Xephos entered to see Honeydew and Lysander casting about in dismay. The room was surrounded by a high ring of bookshelves, and a marble topped table sat in the center of the wooden floor. In parts of the bookshelves there were gaps that opened to some windows, often with large magical apparatuses on the floor beneath them.

"He's not here!" stated Honeydew, holding his hands up by his head in a comical "what?" position. "He must be below us!"

"He must've...oh gods we need to take the other path don't we?" said Xephos as Lysander was already walking back out the door.

"You hear that Lysander?" Xephos jeered. "He's not here! He must be on the

other floor!"

"Here we go!" breathed Honeydew as he once again followed Lysander out onto the floating path, once again noticing that it was not attached to the tower by any means save where they met the doors and any magical ones.

"Oh gods, we have to negotiant this again, don't we?" said Xephos as he walked out onto the path.

"This Tower keeps changing..." called out Lysander as he hobbled down the stairs, the very early morning light was merging the sun between a pink in the east and dark blue in the west.

"Why is this so dangerous?" whined Honeydew in the middle of the path. Xephos chuckled and patted him lightly on the back to get him to move faster.

"The tower keeps changing?" said Honeydew sarcastically. "Yeah I'm sure that's it."

"It's all the explosions!" insisted Lysander.

"Yeah, I'm sure, a likely story."

Lysander (looking thunderous) led them down through the door into the reception, making sure Xephos closed said door behind him. They walked down to the cross-roads and ran up the path they didn't take, which Lysander claimed led them to the Wizard Fumblemore.

They almost ran up this walkway, as it was slightly wider and they'd now become accustomed to the hight.

"It's so weird!" said Honeydew.

"Well it's proper wizard-y. I like it!"

"It is!" replied Honeydew to Xephos's first statement.

Lysander ran ahead and with Honeydew close behind, were soon opening the door. But Xephos, still partially traumatized by the tree incident, lagged, and admired the early morning view some more.

The Skylord was right about the spires of Mistral being beautiful at dawn, and looked about him at the the Sky Platforms of the Upper City, the towers and buildings seeing aflame with the morning sun caught in their coats of dew.

"Fumblemore?" asked Lysander more uncertainly from inside the tower. Xephos took this as a cue to hurry up, and turned and ran up the stairs and as he approached the door, he heard Honeydew.

He said:

"The mightiest of wizards, of all of...oh."

At this point Xephos rushed through the door

"I think that he's on the loo." said Honeydew, staring up at a door in the room at the top of about a two foot high stairs.

The door had a small window in it, and looking out was the forehead of an old silver haired man with stormy grey eyes laced with yellow. Above the door was a sign reading:

_W.C _

For Water Closet. Honeydew poked his head round one of the book shelves on the wall that he'd been standing behind.

"Are you on the loo?" asked Honeydew.

"Hello?" said Xephos.

"What? Eh? Who are you? I'm on the toilet!" said The Wizard through the door in the voice that they'd heard when they were in the Lower City, only up close it was more emphasized.

"Oh gods, Xephos!" squirmed Honeydew, hurriedly turning and looking to the other side of the room. "Turn your back on him!"

"Give me a minute!" yelled Fumblemore, a stream of small groans and farts proceeded.

"Sorry! Sorry!" apologized Honeydew, who looked around the room, taking in as much as he could without peering over his shoulder.

He was standing on the opposite end of the room from the stairs, where Xephos was standing with his back to the "W.C" too, and Lysander was sitting in a wooden armchair next to a large bed in the center of the room, implying that this was the Wizard's living quarters. The bookshelves ran around the inside of the room at the same hight and fashion as the ones downstairs and upstairs, as well as several small piles of books here and there.

"Do you need any paper?" asked Xephos jokingly.

While Lysander was shaking his head, Honeydew walked backwards up to the door of the W.C and threw his Skylord license in-front of the doorway, Xephos did so too.

Fumblemore craned his neck to hear, but said;

"Yes actually could you pass me one of those books?"

"He wants a book!" said Honeydew. "He doesn't need a book! Just use our licenses." He whispered the last part so Lysander wouldn't notice their licenses on the floor.

"We've put some paper outside the door!" announced Xephos to the old Wizard, who didn't seem to hear him.

"Pick one by Fabulo the Great, that's all they're good for." said Fumblemore.

Lysander whistled in awkward boredom, while Xephos walked up to the beside table next to the white bed-spread,and looked through a couple of volumes to see if he could find one by Fabulo the Great. All the while Honeydew was trying to tell Fumblemore that they'd put some paper out side the door.

"Have some Skylord licenses." he said in a clear whisper through the side of his mouth, not wanting Lysander to know exactly what the paper was. "They are soft, strong, and very absorbent!"

"I sort of don't want to turn around incase we see an old man with his trousers down." said Xephos as all three of them hummed like Father Braeburn.

Honeydew laughed merrily, while Lysander just shivered in disgust.

"Are you nearly done in there?" asked Xephos as Lysander crossed over his legs in the chair.

"It's taking him a while..." said Honeydew.

"It is, isn't it?" replied Xephos.

"We may be here a while." spoke Lysander for the first time in ages.

"Does he have a book in there or something? We're quite busy." asked Xephos, taking a gamble and peering over his shoulder, but through the small window he could only see the top half of Fumblemore's face.

"Well, that's what happens when you get old, y'know?" said Honeydew.

Xephos let out a small pant of laughter.

"We've got things to do!" Xephos yelled over his shoulder.

"Why are your licenses on the floor?" asked Lysander, standing up after he finally put two and two together.

"Oh...uh..." stalled Honeydew, when suddenly he ran up and snatched the two licenses.

Xephos ran behind Lysander and made a catching gesture to Honeydew, who quickly threw one of the licenses over Lysander's head. Xephos caught it and held it behind his back as he backed up against he bookshelf when Lysander turned around.

"No reason!" yelled Xephos.

"La, la, la. La la la la la la la la!" hummed Honeydew in an innocent manner.

"What's this?" said Xephos, walking over to the opposite side of the toilet door, where a strange box with many slots, dials and buttons on it.

"It's a record player." stated Lysander. "It plays records, large black discs, when you put them in they make music!"

"Oh," said Xephos. "I've seen different types of devices that do the same thing, when Honeydew took me to Dwergholm."

"Ooohh, that's better!" sighed Fumblemore, the three heroes winced as they heard three small plops into water somewhere.

They heard the door slam shut, and looked up to see an old man with a stooping silver beard and silver hair, with two very bushy eyebrows above his stormy eyes. He wore a midnight blue cloak with small sparkling threads of silver woven in, shimmering like stars, giving the impression that he was wearing a piece of night sky. He buckling up his belt on around his navy blue trousers.

"Now, who are you?" The Wizard asked.

"Oh, he's finished!" shouted Xephos. "Hullo, Fumblemore!"

"Hello great wizard!" Honeydew said. "I am Honeydew." announced the Dwarf.

"I am Xephos," Began Xephos. "Hero of-"

"Of Khaz Modan!" continued Honeydew cutting off Xephos.

He wasn't actually from "Khaz Modan" a fabled city amoung dwarves, but it was a rumor that he tried to reinforce as much as possible.

"And it's me, Lysander." said the Skylord.

"I am the great Wizard Fumblemore!" announced Fumblemore, drawing a slender wooden wand, with gold coiling around it's length from the folds of his robes.

"Xephos, if this man can't help us, then I don't know who can." said Honeydew, staring up at the wizard atop the stairs. "I don't think Granny Bacon will be much help."

Xephos cringed his brow ridge, not sure if his friend was being sarcastic, or truthful.

"Can you help us?" he asked.

"What can I do for you, Zapdos?" asked Fumblemore.

"Zapdos?" said Honeydew. "He's got your name wrong."

"Oh, here we go." mumbled Lysander, slapping the palm of his hand against his forehead.

"I don't think he can hear very well." whispered Xephos, as he walked over to the bed and sat on it.

"Our friend is sick." said Xephos to the Wizard. "We must save him!"

"Is that a wand he's got?" whispered Honeydew. "Be careful where you point that thing!"

"Who? What?" blustered Fumblemore.

"I think he might be a little bit senile." announced Honeydew.

"Old Peculier is suffering from the taint of Israphel!" said Xephos very loudly and clearly with emphasized mouth movement.

"Let's see if any of these words actually get through to him, if he recognizes them." whispered Xephos to the others.

"I'm rather partial to Guinness myself." answered Fumblemore, proving what Honeydew had said before about him being senile.

"What?" said Xephos as Lysander sat back down in the arm chair in despair. "That's not what we said at all! He must be cured!"

Fumblemore just looked confused.

"Lysander, help us." asked Xephos. "how do we get through to him?"

Lysander, on his feet now, yelled out:

"Old Peculier is sick!"

"Is there something you need?" asked Fumblemore. "I'm afraid that you'll need to speak up."

"This old man is senile!" yelled Honeydew.

This was true, but they needed to perceiver if they wanted to find a way to cure Peculier. It was well into the morning now.

"My ears are still ringing, you see."

"God, we're really going to need to yell, aren't we?" said Xephos. He'd just finished his sentence when Honeydew hollered:

"GIVE US THE MONEY!"

"OLD WIZARD!" yelled Xephos quickly, causing Fumblemore to look even more confused, staring from Honeydew to Xephos and back again.

"I don't think he has any money!" hissed Xephos to Honeydew, who was also receiving dagger-like stares from Lysander.

"What?" said Honeydew in shock.

"OUR FRIEND IS SICK WITH TAINT!" yelled Lysander at Fumblemore, to explain the resident chaos.

"But look at this place, look at these "digs" he's got," said Honeydew to Xephos. "He must be loaded!"

"Taint, eh?" murmured Fumblemore.

Lysander walked up next to the Wizard on the stairs, and shouted in his ear, Fumblemore didn't seem to wince or be startled, but seemed to fully understand.

"OLD PECULIER IS ILL!" shouted Lysander.

"How awful." said Fumblemore.

Everyone seemed to be more relaxed now, as it seemed that they were finally getting somewhere. Then Fumblemore said:

"What's wrong with her?"

"CAN YOU HELP HIM YOU CRAZY WIZARD!" roared Honeydew.

"For goodness sake!" huffed Xephos. "I don't think we're getting anywhere."

"It's like talking to a brick wall." grumbled Honeydew.

"Should we walk around the Tower?" whispered Xephos to Honeydew. "See if we can find anything that might be useful for Peculier?"

"Hmm..." mused Honeydew, and the two of them began to slip off towards the door, while Lysander had his back to them shouting at the Wizard.

"WE NEED YOUR HELP!" he shouted with a now hoarse voice. "PECULIER IS ILL!"

"I could rustle up a potion that cures all ills!" stated Fumblemore.

Xephos and Honeydew stopped at the doorway, and ran back into the middle of room.

"Oh!" said Xephos. "That's just what we need!"

"Ah!" yelled Honeydew.

Lysander sighed and fell back into the chair, rubbing his throat.

"So we don't have to rob him!" chortled Honeydew. "Hooray!" he leapt into the air a few times.

"Would you like that?" asked the Wizard.

The group just nodded, not bothering to yell at him.

"What do you need?" sighed Xephos making the assumption that they'd be sent out to gather the ingredients. "I'll bet that it will be like: ten pork, twenty flowers, that would be gooood, you crazy bastard!"

"Well first we need a bucket of wather from the Pool of Life." slurred Fumblemore.

"I assume he means water." whispered Lysander.

It was widely assumed that the Pool of Life was the name of one of the fountains in the City center.

"Some dirt too, yes. Maybe about five?"

This was extremely unexpected. Five [in Mistral City and several other areas of their world, when someone refers to having five of something, is generally means having roughly five handfuls of it. If one has sixty-four of something, it is referred to a "stack".] dirt in a potion didn't sound very "magical".

The companions were looking at each other awkwardly. Maybe the Wizard _was _completely incompetent after all.

"A few feathers might help." continued Fumblemore.

"I've got arrows." Honeydew offered.

Honeydew opened his bolt pouch and threw four bolts on the ground.

"You can scrape the feathers off these!" said Xephos.

"Oh, and maybe some sulphur?" asked Fumblemore. "Five sulphur."

"Five sulphur?" said Xephos to Honeydew. "Shit. You know where we get that from don't you?"

Sulphur was found inside the so-called Powder Lungs of a creeper, and was one of the main ingredients in the chemical cocktail that caused the creeper to explode. It was a dangerous job gathering the stuff, but it was used to create one of Honeydew's favorite toys; TNT.

"From Astley." The Dwarf responded.

"Oh yes, and, hmm..." began Fumblemore, making a noise like he was being stretched very slowly. "Two Golden Apples."

"Two Golden Apples!" shouted Xephos.

"Oh no." sighed Honeydew.

Golden apples were a very rare object to find, and even harder to obtain, as they were often guarded, wether by monsters or greedy owners. The chances of finding a two in the City before it was to late for Peculier were very slim.

"That should do it!" announced Fumblemore, looking rather pleased.

"Aw shit." swore Xephos. "Wait a minute, didn't we find a Golden Apple on the Survival Island?"

"Um..." started Honeydew.

"Did I have it or did you?" pondered Xephos.

"I don't have it on me..." said Honeydew cryptically.

"Two Golden Apples?" mused Lysander, rubbing his chin. "Where are we supposed to get that?"

"Wait a minute." said Honeydew, on to something. "Wait a minute. The Church of the Apple. Do you think?"

"Bring me these things, and your sister will be cured!" shouted Fumblemore with a flourish of his wand, which set off a minute explosion in the bookshelf, send books toppling to the ground.

"Bugger." said Fumblemore.

Xephos turned to Honeydew.

"I'm sure they'd have one, I'm just not sure that they'll give it up."

"I only know of one in the town, and that is sacred." stated Lysander

"Well there we go." responded Xephos.

"Oh my gods." said Honeydew as he walked out the exit. "It's a Proper Quest, my friends, a proper quest."


	5. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Breakfast Distraction.

"A proper quest." repeated Honeydew.

"So are you sure that you don't have a Golden Apple?" asked Xephos. "I'm sure we had one."

"Look," said Honeydew. "it was a long journey, I got hungry!" he chuckled at the end of this sentence.

"Did you give it to Granny Bacon?" asked Xephos as they walked towards the exit, without so much as a goodbye to Fumblemore, as to not further confuse things. "That big voluptuous, lovely woman?"

"Oh, don't get him started!" warned Lysander as they walked out onto the narrow walkway and began to descend back to the lobby area in single file, Honeydew first, Xephos in the center, and Lysander at the rear.

"She said if I gave her a golden apple, she'd let me lick her icing!" bantered Honeydew, who was clearly now making up stories, but there may've been a grain of truth in the tale.

They shuddered to think so.

"Right, said Xephos, the list of the items that they needed running through their head. "Five dirt, five sulphur, two Golden Apples. Five dirt, five sulphur, two Golden Apples."

"Good luck!" cried Fumblemore out of the door way. They all sort of raised their hands in an acknowledging salute, as they were to busy concentrating on not putting their feet over the edge and plummeting.

The City was quiet, too quiet for a large city. There should've been people milling through the streets, children laughing, ladies gossiping, and sales men selling their wares in the square. But it was a ghost town, the sun shone high in the sky, and the wind was nowhere to be felt. The air was cold, however. It was if the sky was full of hundreds of invisible vampires, exhaling their cold breath down the necks of the few who remained in Mistral.

Xephos ran cautiously down the stairs after Honeydew, who'd become quite savvy on the thin walkways, leaving Lysander behind.

"Do we actually have five sulphur?" he asked Honeydew, as they walked through the open doorway back into the bottom floor of the Tower. "I did see some sulphur in that Trash Can, I _think."_

"Oh?" said Honeydew.

"Round the back of Astley's house." nodded Xephos as they walked through the cross roads of the walkways. Xephos lowered his voice. "So if we kill Astley," they walked across the glass floor. "without the Skylord looking..."

"Are you sure this is wise?" counseled Honeydew as they walked round the edge of the Tower, and hastened across the tree-bridge. "He's re-integrated into society!"

They both laughed at this, and fought their way across the bridge at the other side, Lysander was quickly dodging branches as he too crossed the bridge, following after them.

Honeydew noticed an area on the floating island near the tree bridge where the cobblestone path that led down from the floating walkway leading back to the Sky Tower split of and weaved down, and along a thin path cut into the side of the island. He walked down towards the path as Xephos sat on the ground at the foot of the tower on this island waiting for Lysander.

Honeydew shuffled side-long across the path, which dropped down suddenly at its rim. As he looked ahead, Honeydew saw that the path eventually leapt into the sky and led towards the strange three-dimensional dirt diamond.

"Where are you, friend?" called Xephos back up by the tree.

"I don't know where I'm going, Xephos! Don't know where I'm going!" called back Honeydew as he edged his way back to his friends who stood at the foot of the felled tree.

"I think we need to be up here!" called Xephos as he saw Honeydew poke his head around the corner of the floating mountain.

"We should get going." intoned Lysander in his usual even tone.

Xephos walked over to the door of the square tower that stood in the center of the island they stood on, he only now noticed the large sort of wharf jutting out of the top level, Xephos wondered if the building was a dock of sorts . The door was unlocked, suggesting that it was a public building, then remembered that only Skylords were allowed up here. He wondered if perhaps the docking tower had a way down. maybe had a way down.

"Can we go down this way?" asked Xephos as he pushed through the open door and seeing a flight of stairs, he immediately descended upon them, not wanting to walk the entire was along the walkways to get down to the Lower City, and he just wanted to explore.

Like a mischievous child he trotted down the stairs, a stone spiral stair-case cleaved from the living rock of the island.

"There is only one way down," called Lysander after him. "without broken limbs!"

"Oh, leave 'im be!" laughed Honeydew placing a heavy hand on Lysander's shoulder. "If he cant find a way down, he'll just make one!"

This did not encourage Lysander even slightly, the thought of a man running about vandalizing his city was somehow unreassuring.

Honeydew turned and walked along the walkway back towards the intersection that would lead them back to the Sky Tower. As they reached the intersection, Lysander leaned over the edge of the walkway, pointing out at another walkway parallel and down ward from theirs.

"Look!" called Lysander. He was pointing at a small figure in a suit of armor running along the path towards a large stone tower on an island, that in turn had a walkway joining up to theirs.

"That's Xephos!" yelled Honeydew.

"He's going towards the Watch Tower," said Lysander "he will soon meet up with us."

"Then let us beat him!" shouted Honeydew, who ran along the walkway, followed by Lysander.

They reached the Intersection, that also joined up the walkway from the Watch Tower, the three walkways joined up in a "T" shape, the stem was the path that they were on, the right arm the path Xephos would run up, and the left arm led back to the Sky Tower.

Honeydew and Lysander flew around the corner as Xephos ran up the walkway, and saw Lysander and Honeydew pegging it along the walkway, he flew up the stairs before him until he was level with the rest of the walkways, he was just in time to see the top of Lysander's head disappear below the stairs leading down to the Sky Tower.

Xephos had emerged at the bottom of the stone stairway of the strange tower in a roomy chamber with a huge cave mouth open to the sky, a dock jutting out from the floor, and signs here and there. One on the wall before where Xephos had emerged from saying:

_North Dock_

It pointed up a wide stairway that lead up through the stone to another sky wharf. Xephos had walked out into the middle of the large area, and as he turned he saw another tight passage directly left of the one he'd just come out of. It's sign above read:

_City_

_Walkways_

He headed down this passage way. The floor went down, did a right turn, another right, leveled out, and after a few feet turned left and led outside to one of the walkways.

The walkway he emerged on was straight, and led far out towards the lighthouse that they'd seen as they'd walked towards the City.

"Oh, gods!" Xephos said to himself. "This isn't where I was supposed to be at all!"

He looked to his left and below him was a tall house with a glass roof on the penthouse at it's tip.

"Lost in Mistral City."

He looked along the walkway and saw that halfway along it branched off into another. It headed in the direction of the walkway that Lysander and Honeydew were both walking along at the moment, which it was parallel to.

Xephos ran to it and looked along it's length. At it's end it connected to a large stone tower that floated above the corner of the city that met up with the corner of the Ridge. From the tower's island there appeared to be a walkway that joined up to the one that led to the Sky Tower.

Xephos began to stroll along the walkway in the morning light, and looked up towards the sight of the walkway that Skylord Lysander and Honeydew would've crossed. But as Xephos looked up he saw the two figures only now crossing the bridge, so he began to run to meet up with them.

As he reached half way he looked up and noticed that they must've seen him, as they too were running, seemingly intent on not allowing him to overtake them. Xephos increased his speed, the heavy suit of armor weighing next to nothing, for that was how fine it's craft man ship was, It was one of the final pieces of craft that Daisy Dukes had made before her disappearance, the other a pair of armored greaves that he guessed Honeydew had stowed away in his bag somewhere.

Xephos reached the end of the wooden walkway and walked onto the lush grass at the foot of the huge tower. The space around the foot of the tower was much larger than that of Fumblemore's, but Xephos had no time for sight seeing, Honeydew and Lysander had non-verbally challenged him to a race.

He ran past the door-way of the Tower and turned left, he ran quickly up the steep stairs and as Lysander bobbed below his line of sight and down onto the roof of the Sky Tower.

Xephos ran after them and as he reached the point next to the dirt diamond structure where he'd last seen Lysander, he saw him running down the entry way to the stairs inside the Tower.

Xephos stopped at this point and opened his bag and began to sift through the many items that were floating about his bag, seeing if he had any of the ingredients for the potion.

He had none of the things that were needed, and many things that he probably never would, but he soon gave up on finding anything and walked down the stairs.

The winding stairway was cast with eerie shadows by the late morning sun, and Xephos's armor was aglow with it as he reached the foot of the Tower.

He walked out into the Lower City, the oaks on his right's leaves were twitching in the wind, and the dew on the ground next to the Sky Tower had two sets of foot prints running through it, they led to the gap in the trees that led down to the graveyard, implying that Honeydew and Lysander were heading for the Fountains for the water.

Xephos set off down the cobblestone path past the Elysium, which he looked up at and thought of Old Peculier, slowly decaying up on the highest floor.

He continued to run past the buildings, and came to the corner of the path that led down to the more urban area of the City.

The ruins of Bungalow Peculier were cold and the flames looked as though they'd finally been extinguished by time and starvation. Xephos stared at it for a short while, and then walked down the stairs on the Ridge and past Granny Bacon's. He past Victoria Street, and cast a mischievous glance down towards the Astley Residence. There was no avoiding the fact that the creeper would have to die eventually, they needed the sulphur that he held within himself, and he was a freak of nature as far as Xephos and Honeydew were concerned, just a creeper that had been trapped in a house.

Xephos continued past Victoria Street and through the tight road towards the Fountains, where he could begin to hear voices.

He quickened his pace and as he emerged from the buildings in a brisk trot, he cold see Lysander and Honeydew walking up to the fountains, Honeydew loudly conversing with Lysander over something. As Honeydew saw Xephos running towards them, he loudly shouted:

"We won!"

"Congratulations, friend." said Xephos. "what were you talking about just now?"

"I think we have more important things to attend to." huffed Lysander, and walked over towards the huge lamppost in the center of the three fountains.

Honeydew and Xephos walked along behind him, and Honeydew began to explain to Xephos what he'd said to Lysander.

"So I was telling Lysander that I think the issue is here that we've got a Wizard, blowing things up, and who's got a wand, and we're just assuming that he knows what he's doing, that he's an Alchemist. But Alchemy, is something very different to Wizardry. This Fumblemore guy, I'm just not sure, I'm not sure that he knows what he's doing. But what else are we going to do? I mean we don't really have much of an option."

"Mmm..." murmured Xephos as they walked over to Lysander, who was leaning with his back against the lamppost.

Honeydew began to search the rims of one of the Fountains, and found a plaque on the bottom of the one facing back toward the cramped road that Xephos had come down. The plaque was fashioned from sheet bronze, but was now coated in rust and verdigris. The engraved letters where stylized with flicks and curls. It read:

Fountain of

Strength

Xephos walked over to one of the fountains on the opposite side of the lamppost, that Lysander was still leaning against, a look of mixed anticipation and amusement on his face.

"What does that one say?" asked Honeydew to Xephos.

"Well," said Xephos, peeking over at Honeydew's, his keen eyes making out the letters on the plaque. "Your's says Fountain of Strength, and mine says Pool of Memory. So which one is the Pool of Life?"

"Try that one?" offered Honeydew as he pointed over to the third fountain, that they now realized that it did not actually have a fountain, it was just a pool with a stream of water falling into it from one of the islands above.

Xephos walked over to this pool, his hopes had rose, this was the only one that could possibly be the Pool of Life.

But it wasn't, on the plaque bolted to the edge of the pool were inscribed the words:

In Memorium

Prince Sirh

Xephos had no idea what this could mean, but assumed that it was a memorial pool to one "Prince Sirh",but what really nagged at his mind was mind was the fact that there was no Pool of Life. Why would Lysander lead them here if there was not? And a tombstone in the graveyard had said that that poor man had drowned in.

Meanwhile, Lysander had walked towards the Pool of Memory and trailed his hand through the water. This pool was deeper that the others, which had proved to be it's downfall.

"I'm guessing he meant the strength one." said Honeydew, as he walked towards said fountain.

"Probably." said Xephos.

Lysander permitted himself a small smile before he turned to the two friends, his face suddenly very serious.

"The Wizard's going senile." he stated. "We renamed the Pool of Life after there were some drownings."

Xephos and Honeydew had to bite their cheeks to stop them from exploding into peals of laughter. Lysander saw this, and continued with his announcement.

"It is now the Pool of Memory."

"Right!" shouted Honeydew, loping over towards the Pool of Memory.

"Well," said Xephos, running over to the Pool too. "Do you have a bucket?" he asked to Lysander.

Lysander pulled the rugged, banged out shell of a bucket that had contained the milk that they'd given Peculier days ago, and it's cap. Lysander dipped the bucket into the water and scooped up enough water to fill it to two-thirds of the way to it's brim. He then rested the bucket on the edge of the Pool, held it steady with one hand, and placed the cap gingerly on the top and hammered down on it a couple of times until it was snug and wouldn't leak.

"Does that water actually contain magical properties?" asked Honeydew.

Lysander shrugged.

"I would know of such things." he responded. "For that is the Wizards job. Where is Xephos?"

"Hmm?" Honeydew turned, as Xephos had been standing behind him. But he was not there. They saw the Church door slam shut, and Honeydew and Lysander proceeded to run toward the Church, for it was obvious what Xephos had gone to the Church of the Holy Apple to seek.

Xephos ran up to Father Braeburn, who was standing next to one of the pews, polishing the brass guilting with a red silk handkerchief.

The inside of the Church was quite magnificent. The rear stained glass window was nearly as large as the entire back wall, it's apple insignia was casting a crimson light across the flagstone floor.

"Father!" cried Xephos.

Father Braeburn looked up from the pew, and smiled warmly at Xephos. He was wearing his same dark glasses and suit.

"Hello, hero!" greeted Father Braeburn, tucking the red handkerchief into his pants pocket.

"We require two Golden Apples." said Xephos in a friendly voice.

Father Braeburn was _very_ surprised and took several steps back as his legs went weak.

"What?" he stammered as he regained control over his legs. "But...No!"

At that moment Honeydew and Lysander ran through the door.

"Is there any chance we could have, the, err...Holy Apple?" asked Xephos grinning meekly.

"This is the Church of the Holy Apple!" cried Braeburn, backing towards the lectern at the rear of the Church, behind which Xephos could see the corner of a chest. The Father's dazzling smile was nowhere to be seen.

"It is urgent Father, Peculier is ill!" reasoned Lysander.

Honeydew walked over to Xephos as Lysander continued to reason Father Braeburn.

"There must be a Golden Apple somewhere." Honeydew whispered.

"Yes," said Xephos. "I don't want to really look in that chest." he nodded over to it behind the lectern.

Honeydew walked around behind Braeburn, as if ready to grab him whilst the others mugged him, but it was unlikely that Lysander would let it come to that.

Xephos walked in between a row of pews on the left side of the Church, and sat down, waiting for something to happen.

"The Church of the Holy Apple!" said Father Braeburn one more time as with a flourish he reached into his coat and produced the most perfect, shinning gold apple. He held it aloft on his finger tips as if fearing touching it for too long.

"Ooo! There we go!" gasped Xephos excitedly as he leapt to his feet. "He's got one! He's got one!"

"This is a sacred symbol!" said Braeburn in a regal voice, but his expression was not that of an assured one.

"The old man could _die!"_ persisted Lysander.

This appeared to take some effect on Father Braeburn, and he brought down the apple to his chest (which he had his white coat unbuttoned to, showing of some chest hair.) and stared at it as if it had started to loose it's appeal.

"But...well." the Father began. "To be quite honest. This whole Apple business is very old fashioned these days."

At this point Xephos had noticed a sign nailed above the doorway, it read:

The Holy Notch

shall smite

thee that eat

the Holy Apple

Xephos thought that this was a rather extreme consequence, and doubted wether Notch would kill any one who ate the apple. But then Xephos remembered the grave of Pastor Reynolds, and thought better of it.

"Not quite pulling in the punters, if you know what I mean?" said Father Braeburn in his melodic voice.

"Yeah, we know what you mean, Braeburn." replied Xephos, tearing his eyes away from the sign. "We know exactly what you mean!"

Father Braeburn turned and walked up behind his lectern, and plonked the Golden Apple on the rim, in a sort of especially made cradle where it was in clear sight.

"I could be persuaded to give this to you," he wave his hand slowly above the apple. "but I would need something in return."

Xephos wondered if Notch would also "smite" Father Braeburn for giving away his sacred relic. That led him to wonder what may happen to Peculier when he...ingested the potion.

"You should start a Church of Song!" said Honeydew.

"I've always been a big fan of music." stated Father Braeburn, at the same time as Honeydew had said his remark. "Yes!" exclaimed Father Braeburn, looking at Honeydew with surprise on his dusky features. "You understand me completely, dwarf friend!"

"You got it!" said Xephos, patting Honeydew on the back. "You got it!"

"I like this idea!" jabbered Father Braeburn, getting quite excited now. "How about..."

"Shall we write you some songs in return for an Apple?" asked Lysander, who'd been sitting in the pew at the foot of Braeburn's lectern. He'd assumed that the chest at the back was full of apples.

"You get me a music record!" corrected Braeburn. "I'll make it like, The Church of the Holy Record!"

"So, where are we...ah..." moaned Honeydew. "Where the Hell are we going to find a record?"

Records were very difficult to obtain, making them highly prized possessions. They were most commonly found in underground dungeons, that appeared at random beneath the surface, and were guarded by monsters. Only now had people even begun to make their own, but they cost a king's ransom.

"Oh gods, that's even worse!" complained Xephos. "A Holy Record? Ack!"

"This is a brilliant idea!" said Father Braeburn, totally lost in the vision of his new Church.

"It is!" responded Honeydew, with mock enthusiasm. "You are a genius!"

"Bring me the record," announced Braeburn. "and I'll give you my apple!"

"Okay!" shouted Honeydew.

"Ok, um." murmured Xephos. "Do you know where we can find a record?"

Lysander was sitting back in the pew, hand on face, and head shaking.

"We had a record, on the Survival Island." stated Honeydew.

"Oh gods!" swore Xephos. "I can remember you throwing it off the ship for ballast!"

They'd found an ancient treasure hold beneath the ground on the Survival Island, and amongst other things there was a record.

"A gold record, by the way." said the Father. "It needs to be a Holy-type colour."

"Oh, well I think our one was green." sighed Honeydew.

There were eleven "Naturally Occurring" records, each played a different rhythm. One of the rarest was a Golden Record.

"I think I know where to get one Father," spoke up Lysander, getting to his feet. "We shall return."

The three of them began to shuffle toward the exit, when Father Braeburn shouted out.

"Did you need two?" he asked.

"Yeah," answered Xephos at the open doorway behind Honeydew. "we need two, have you got any spares?"

The Father just shook his head as Xephos stepped outside into the sunlight.

"Okay," he called back through the doorway. "We'll get back to you!"

"I'm all about the record now!" he heard Braeburn announce.

Lysander led them over to the stone well in-between the Fountain of Strength and the Church. He turned to the heroes and said, his voice a low drone:

"You remember Jasper?" he asked. "He's an avid music fan."

"Ah!" laughed Honeydew, with a twinkle in his eye as he did when he was about to do something rash.

"I shall take you to his home, hopefully he's not in." said Lysander, as Honeydew walked back towards the Opium Den.

"Oh." Honeydew said, turned around ran back to Lysander who was trotting the lamppost in the center of the Fountains.

"So," ventured Honeydew as he and Xephos followed Lysander around the side of the Pool of Memory. "We're going to rob him, eh?"

Lysander brought them to the foot of a large house situated in the closest left-hand corner if you were viewing it from the entrance to the city.

It was in between two smaller houses that seemed to be abandoned, and was a very tall building, at least three stories high, and Xephos realized that it was the one that he'd seen when he got lost on the Sky Platforms, it was the building with the glass penthouse on the top. It seemed to be the fanciest house in the City, out of the ones that they'd seen, even more luxurious than Lysander's Elysium. The second story had a long, thin bay window wrapping around the corner of the wooden house that faced out towards the fountains, and through they were at a distance, they could just see the top of Jasper's head bobbing back and forth in time to a beat it appeared.

"Looks like he's got quite a pimped out place." commented Xephos, using more dwarven slang that had rubbed off on him in his time with Honeydew.

"He is in." said Honeydew as Lysander walked up to the threshold of the house where two doors sat on a right angle allowing access to the house from which ever direction one was coming from.

"Blast!" cried Lysander quietly, as to not alert Jasper to their presence.

Honeydew walked up to the stoop, which was set into the building, so that they were beneath Jasper, whatever he was doing. On the left side on the alcove was a sign of finest varnished wood, with letters that seemed to be of gold read in stylized characters:

1 Riverside

They took this to be the address, which seemed fitting as it was situated next to the wall and it's hight would offer a view of the moat that ran around the most of the city.

"He _is_ in." droned Xephos lowly.

"Let's sneak in!" hissed Honeydew, and Lysander walked up to the door with a large ring of keys that he'd produced from satchel. These were the master keys, and could open any door in the City, save ones that had been illegally made in secret.

He inserted a key into the keyhole in the doorway on the left, and turned it. There was a click, and Lysander slowly pushed open the door, and stood back to allow the others to enter first.

Xephos entered first, then Honeydew, and finally Lysander. The bottom floor seemed to be a sort of living area. there was a huge, green and purple checker-board carpet in the middle of the large eight-by-ten yard room. In the left-hand corner, there was an "L" shaped couch with squashy red cushions sewn onto it. In the corner opposite the door were a chest, an oven, a work-table and a basin, whilst in the right corner there was a wooden stairway with polished banister leading up to the second floor. All about the room long windows stretched across the walls they were on, which was every one but the wall the stairs ran up, and if there were a plain space on the wall, it had been covered by a tapestry.

"This is quite a nice looking place..." whispered Xephos as he tip-toed over to the stair and looked up it, but he could see no more than some more coloured cloth.

Honeydew was murmuring a low song as he snuck over to the chest by the kitchen, Xephos followed.

"Quite." Honeydew whispered, holding a finger to his lips, as he opened the chest, the hinges squeaked and Honeydew winced at the sound, but Jasper did not seem to hear, which may have been due to the music they could hear floating down the stairway.

"Be quiet!" hissed Lysander, as he too walked slowly across the floor to the chest.

But there was nothing in there but some herbs and wooden cooking utensils.

"No." said Xephos. He hadn't expected Jasper to keep a valuable possession in a chest downstairs. "That would've been too easy."

It was then that he noticed the chest in the other corner of the room, between the doors.

Xephos rushed over to it in as quieter manner as possible, but when he threw open the lid (which he did quickly, so the squeaking would become less vibrant.) he saw that it was bare, containing nothing but dust and a cobweb.

"Where is he?" asked Honeydew discreetly, referring to Jasper.

Xephos looked over at him, and snuck over to the stairs, which he pointed up at.

"He's up there." he whispered, Honeydew and Lysander began to walk very slowly up the stairs, placing each foot with care incase they creaked.

As they reached halfway, they heard Jasper sing along to a verse of the music that had grown louder as they reached the top of the stairs.

"Don't stop moving to the funky, funky beat!" he sang in his thin, high, slightly lisped voice. "Ahh, nothing beats a good bath!"

The heroes all looked at each other with eyebrows raised as the torrid and exotic beat of the music continued.

Honeydew, who was taking point, crept further on up the stairs until he was at the second floor.

He peered up over the edge of the floor, between the legs of a fence that bordered the gap that the stairs emerged from.

The sight that greeted him was an disturbing one. The room was full of steam, and the pungent aroma of bath-oil, but through the wisps of steam Honeydew could still make out the naked form of Jasper, who was facing the window, with his back to them. He did appear to be in a bath, a large one set into the floor, and was still wearing the Skylord's coveted goggles upon his head which he now saw was bobbing in time to the music, that consisted of a frenzy of beat and rhythm.

"Oh gods, he's right over there!" Honeydew breathed.

Lysander poked up his head too, and shuddered when he saw what lay inside the room. Honeydew looked towards the top of the stairs, but unfortunately the top of the stairs was separated from the rest of the room by an iron door. Honeydew prodded Lysander, who looked up at him. "And there's an iron door!" Honeydew said.

Honeydew pointed over at the door, and Lysander squeezed past him, drawing the keys from his satchel with as little amount of jingling as possible.

He reached the top of the landing and attempted to fit the same key that he'd used on the front door here, but it would not fit.

Jasper continued to sing loudly as Lysander tried fitting several other keys for different reasons, but none fitted.

Lysander turned to Honeydew and gestured that they go back downstairs. They turned and delicately walked back down. Xephos was waiting at the landing.

"That is an illegal door." rumbled Lysander. "None of the keys fit."

"Can I have a look?" asked Xephos, he hadn't looked because Lysander and Honeydew had taken up most of the room on the stairs. "I could pick the lock?"

"No point," answered Lysander in a hushed voice. "It's a heavy duty lock. Anyway he'll hear you as you pick it."

Xephos crept up the stairs, and recoiled at the view. He also noticed that there were several pink and purple towels hanging up on hooks at certain points in the room.

The wall that joined the iron door to the wall even had two towels draped over it, one purple one pink.

"Oh gods!" Xephos hissed. "He's in a bathtub, and there's pink towels everywhere!" This led Xephos to question Jaspers sexuality, which he pondered as he came back down the stairs.

"He looks like he's having a nice wash, a nice splash around." Xephos said to Lysander, who was following Honeydew out of the gaudy house.

"I _do_ know a way to get him out of the house..." said Honeydew loudly on the outside as Lysander shut the door behind them.

"Right..." answered Xephos, already suspecting something was afoot.

"But it's fairly extreme..." continued Honeydew.

"You want to set fire to the house. I don't think that is a very good idea. I knew what you were thinking, I'm sure there is a better way to do it." bantered Xephos, watching Honeydew like a hawk as his hands slid toward the pouches that contained his flint and steel.

"Then how are we going to get him out of the house?" asked Honeydew, a devil-like grin growing across his features.

"Well," said Lysander hurriedly, not wanting the dwarf to set fire to the city. "We can probably get to the balcony from the Sky Platforms. And check the top room."

"Oh yeah!" said Xephos. "The record must be in a chest, or a record player."

"Perhaps he was playing just then?" offered Honeydew, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb up to Jasper's bathroom.

"A gold record wouldn't make a noise like that." said Lysander. "That would've been a man-made one."

"So," said Xephos as he gazed up at the midday sun. "Let's go and check the top room. Are we going to parachute down, or let out a rope or something like that?"

"Something like that." replied Lysander, who turned without another word and walked back towards the other side of the Square, where the access point to the Ridge was.

"So we're going up to the top are we?" said Xephos eagerly as he and Honeydew started after Lysander. But the Skylord would speak no more.

The two fell behind Lysander and began to converse with each other.

"Do you have any sulphur?" asked Xephos to Honeydew.

"No." said Honeydew in surprise. "I didn't know that we'd need any."

"Yeah," answered Xephos. "It's probably for wizarding purposes."

"We've got the TNT." offered Honeydew as they passed the fountains and walked into the side street. "But I guess..."

"We might have to go hunting for creepers." sighed Xephos. Creeper hunting was a tricky business if you did not want to be blasted into small, meaty chunks, but still wanted your prize. It mainly consisted of running forwards and hitting the creeper, then running backwards before it exploded.

"Mmm." Honeydew said. "Something tells me that give TNT to the crazy Wizard might not be, the best idea."

They both laughed at this, it was true that the last thing the wizard needed was explosives. Then something occurred to Xephos.

He turned to Honeydew as they came through the side street and towards where Victoria Street branched off, where Lysander was waiting by the Ridge.

"Should we take out Astley while we're here?" Xephos whispered to Honeydew. "Do you want to distract Lysander, you can take him into Granny Bacon's, while I..."

"Uhh, yeah!" said Honeydew as Lysander walked over to them to see what the matter was.

"Talk to him!" hissed Xephos through the side of his mouth to his friend.

"Hey, Lysander!" said Honeydew rather unsurely.

"Hello, Honeydew." replied Lysander looking shiftily at the two of them.

"Lets go have breakfast!" cried Honeydew, nodding at the wooden walls of Grandma Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe. It was rather late in the day, and none of them had eaten, but no-one was accustomed to eating much.

"A good idea!" agreed Lysander, who turned and walked towards the door of the shop.

"That is a good idea!" acted Xephos, standing still as Honeydew followed after Lysander, who was just opening the door to the Tea Shoppe. "I just need to visit the bathroom!"

"Get a nice a nice bit of bacon!" said Honeydew as Lysander walked through the door. "I know a nice bit of bacon..." he said in a sly voice. "And here she is!"

"Hello, dears!" called Granny Bacon as the door shut, leaving Xephos alone.

He slunk down Victoria Street drawing his sword from it's sheath at his side. He reached the front of the Astley house.

"Okay Astley," he breathed, pressing his face up to glass in a sinister manner. "where are you?"

"Two pork chops, please!" requested Lysander as he sat down at the stone bench inside Granny Bacon's, pointing up at the menu.

"Hello my little wrinkled strumpet!" greeted Honeydew fondly as he entered too. He then proceeded to fill out a (very) long order, of which Granny Bacon accepted without hesitation.

"Coming right up, Cutiebeard!" sand Granny Bacon, who winked at Honeydew.

Lysander grew worried that he might need to evacuate again.

Suddenly, an enormous explosion resonated through the City, rattling the cutlery laid out on the table.

Honeydew glanced about nervously.

"THAT WAS NOTHING!" he said loudly and full of dismissal . "JUST ONE OF FUMBLEMORE'S EXPERIMENTS!"

Granny Bacon shook her head as she served Lysander his pork chops, which he cut up very neatly with a knife and fork before eating it.

"Delicious!" he announced.

"Eer.."moaned Honeydew, glancing at the door. "I need to...Take a leak!" he turned very quickly and ran out the door way. He rounded the corner to Victoria Street and saw down the end, Xephos, was standing amongst several large pieces of debris next to where the door way of the Astley house had once been, now there was a huge gaping hole in it's place.

"Oh, shit!" Honeydew yelled as he ran up to Xephos. "What the hell happened?"

"Well," said Xephos as he hefted up a piece of wall that had been blown off and tried to lay it back against the wall, in a fashion similar to solving a jigsaw puzzle. "I opened the door to try and find him and lure him out in the open where it would be easier to kill him. But unfortunately he was hiding next to the door and rushed me as I entered. Jumped a mile high when I saw that face of his!

But anyway, I ran back outside, but he was already part way through his explosion process, swelled up two times his original size and stuck in the doorway, he was hissing like a snake fit to strike!

So I tried to run forwards and stab at him but he exploded before I could so much as lay the tip of my blade on him."

"The explosion doesn't look all to large." observed Honeydew, and it wasn't. Creeper normally have an explosion radius of five yards, and strong enough to break through rock. But this explosion was hardly two yards, and hadn't even cracked the stone on the road.

"Maybe creeper's explosive ability decreases over time." suggested Xephos.

Honeydew shrugged. Astley had probably lived for donkey's years in creeper standards. This made him feel slightly guilty, as he'd died for nothing. But, then again it was unnatural for a creeper to live amongst people.

"Then how do you make babby creeper?" Honeydew asked.

The two of them began to put the pieces of the wall back together, pressing the relatively large frames of wood into place so successfully that the repair was seamless to one who did not study it carefully. Lastly they pushed the mostly undamaged door into it's place. They stood back and admired their repair work. It seemed to be mostly exactly the same as before, but something seemed to be missing...

"Right!" yelled Honeydew as he began to walk back towards Granny Bacon's. "My Big Breakfast will be ready!"

"Oh gods, what did you order?" asked Xephos as he tentatively pushed open the door, that ended up just falling through the doorway and onto the floor on the other side. The cobbled together wall however stayed up

"Lysander has ordered two pork chops." said Honeydew stopping and talking in his posh voice. "I'm having something a bit more traditional. Some sausage, some eggs, some beans, some mushrooms." Xephos went to enter the Astley house, but Honeydew hadn't even finished yet. "A couple of pieces of french-toast, some tomatoes on the side, maybe a few chips." he was now listing all of his dishes on his fingers. "A warm, milky mug of coffee, a glass of orange juice... and that was all." Honeydew smacked his lips and rubbed his belly.

"Blimey." breathed Xephos, his empty stomach rumbling in envy as Honeydew skipped merrily off. "Get me a slice of bread, or something!" called Xephos as Honeydew waved his hand dismissively over his shoulder as he rounded the corner and ran toward Granny Bacon's.

Xephos entered the Astley residence to snoop around the rooms, for he strongly suspected that there would be a box or a few sacks full of sulphur somewhere in the house.

The room was dimly lit, as he supposed a creeper would prefer it, only a few small candles lighting a miniscule area of the house, that seemed to very closely resemble the interior of the Elysium. To his left, beneath the stairs Xephos noticed a door. He opened this, and it seemed to lead down to a basement accessed by a ladder. Xephos climbed down this, but the basement (that seemed to more resemble a dungeon.) contained nothing within it's stone walls.

Xephos climbed up the ladder, and walked towards the stairs on the right side of the room, but not after ransacking a lockbox next to the fire place that only held a fire poker and some kindling.

After running up the stairs, Xephos dived onto a chest seated at the foot of the large bed, it was the only one left on the house that could have any sulphur in it.

But it contained nothing. Xephos slammed the lid down angrily on the chest, now they would have to go hunting for the green bastards, which at night was all the more deadly with other monsters about.

Xephos noticed a ladder on the left side of the bed's pink duvet that led up to a trapdoor on the ceiling. He knew that would open into the sky, but he was curious anyway.

He scaled the ladder and opened the trapdoor with a single hand. He emerged into the afternoon air high above the ground on the house's flat roof.

All of the buildings in Victoria Street were of the same hight, and as Xephos walked to the middle of the wooden slate roof, the wind ruffling his brown hair, he looked behind him, where the oaks on the Ridge just blocked out sight of the Elysium. How long could Peculier hang on to his life? They needed to get the ingredients for the potion, and quickly.

Xephos scampered back down the ladder, and ran through the rest of the house, stopping only to lift the door back into place once he was outside.

He ran around to the trash can between Astley's house and the other, praying that it hadn't been emptied. It hadn't, and he grabbed up the two small wet bags of sulphur, stowing them in his satchel.

Xephos ran out of the crevasse between the two houses and towards the Tea Shoppe, he threw the door open, but Lysander was the only one present, sitting on a pool table that Xephos had not noticed before, with a pool cue in hand.

"Done, relieving our self are we?" asked Lysander glumly.

"Where are Honeydew and Granny?" asked Xephos, looking over at an enormous pile of plates on the bench.

"They're out back." shuddered Lysander, pointing towards a door behind the counter. "He's "sampling" her "cooked fish"."

Xephos had to stop a little bit of sick from coming up.

"Urgh..." he groaned, losing his appetite, but it suddenly returned he notice a steaming hot pork chop sitting on a plate set aside from Honeydew's apocalypse of crockery and grease.

"That pork chop over there is your's." said Lysander.

Xephos walked over and practically inhaled the meat in around forty seconds. After he'd finished, he reached slowly and inconspicuously towards a delicious looking slice of cake on the stand to his left.

But just as his fingers were no less that an inch from the cake, the door behind the counter slammed open, and out emerged Honeydew, looking rather smug, followed by Granny, looking flushed.

"Enjoy the fish?" asked Xephos, quickly whipping his arm behind his back.

"It was lovely." chuckled Honeydew while Granny Bacon giggled in pleasure.

"Eer...Okay..." squirmed Xephos as he walked over to Lysander by the pool table, while Honeydew walked around the other side of the bench/counter where Granny bacon remained, to browse the menu for some odd reason, considering that they'd just eaten, him far more than Xephos or Lysander put together.

"How much do I owe you?" flirted Honeydew.

"On the house for you, deary." whispered Granny Bacon, as she started to clean and put away dishes.

Xephos, determined not to be forced out of the shop again, called over to Honeydew, still browsing the menu.

"I like this pool table," he called over to the tall dwarf. "have you seen this? Honeydew?"

"Whoah!" cried Honeydew, startling everyone in the shop. "I think she might have Gold Apples, it's on the menu!"

Xephos and Lysander ran up to the counter and looked up at the menu where Honeydew was pointing. Granny Bacon hadn't heard them talking, as she was busy washing, and they suspected that she my be a little hard of hearing, but not at Fumblemore standards.

Next to the the words Golden Apple it said that they cost eight D, which did not take a lot of imagination to convert to diamonds.

"It says eight diamonds." moaned Xephos. "Where the hell are we going to get eight diamonds from?"

"Hold on." said Honeydew, who leaned over the bench and got Granny's attention. "Do you have any Golden Apples, you lovely, grey lower bearded minx?"

Granny Bacon shot him a sharp glance.

"I have no beard dear, none at all." she snapped.

"Oh." said Honeydew sheepishly. "Ooo..."

"What?" asked Xephos, totally confused.

"It's best not to ask, Xephos." said Honeydew over his shoulder. "It's best not to ask."

"Anyway..." said Xephos. "Have you seen this pool table? Look." Xephos wandered around the side of the table and pulled a cue off the rack on the wall.

"Aha!" laughed Honeydew, bounding over and running a great hand across the top. "It's the Baize!"

"Yeah," sighed Xephos, just glad that the horrid flirting had ended. "So we could play pool if you want to."

Honeydew grabbed the the cue Xephos was holding and fished some of the balls out of the nets under the holes in the table, and plonking them onto the table-top.

"I think you'll find that in this country it's know as Snooker, or even Billiards." Honeydew said in the posh voice. "I am a grand-master at Billiards, of the pocket kind."

And on that, he hit a ball straight into one of the holes, breaking most of the rules while doing so.


	6. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 6

Chapter Six: A Mission Impossible

"Right," breathed Xephos as he walked over the small bridge that was next to the house beside the Elysium, it stretched over the moat that ran about the City, and at it's landing it came to the foot of the crumbled, overgrown ruins of an ancient castle. Xephos had not seen the castle when he was inspecting the bridges landing after they'd tried to save Peculier's house, but that was most likely due to the fact that it was dark at the time.

Xephos was hunting for creepers, as to fully complete one part of the ingredient list for Fumblemore, and this area of moat next to the remains of the castle was flooded in darkness cast by the Sky Platforms above, so that was where the creepers would be, as they headed towards darkness during daylight hours.

As Xephos reached the other side of the bridge, and as soon as he set foot outside of the City, a creeper leapt out of the shadows next to the Castle, which ran alongside the moat. It was hissing madly as it attempted to clamber it's way towards Xephos, it's progress was impaired, however by what appeared to be large wooden asterisks that had been placed for the specific purpose of hampering creepers.

Xephos warily stepped forwards, prepared at any one time to slash out at the fiend, or run backwards as soon as it started to swell.

"Okay," sighed Xephos, trying to self assure him of the predicament that, he'd gotten himself into. "This is probably a good situation." Although he rarely said that when creepers where involved. He looked to his left along the moat in the direction of the Elysium. There were at least two other creepers wading through the water.

He'd left the Tea Shoppe after a long winded argument with Honeydew over the rules of "Billiards", as Honeydew refused to have it called anything else. Xephos had attempted to explain that one had to hit the white ball into the other types of balls in order to sink them. Honeydew argued that that was over-complicating things, and frankly racist to all the other colours of balls.

They'd never raised their voices during this, but eventually Xephos gave in and let Honeydew play however he wanted to, but he would do so by himself. Xephos had left, saying that he was going hunting for creepers.

This was a good excuse to leave, as it would hopefully defuse any suspicions Skylord Lysander had over the explosions that they'd caused when they blew-up Astley, and it would get Honeydew out of his hair.

Xephos ran forwards and swiped at the creeper, but missed. The creeper hissed and began to swell, Xephos ran backwards over the bridge turning round only when he reached the other side of it. The creeper had swelled to twice it's size, and hissing like a fuse. Light was escaping through gaps in his body as though there was a fire lit deep within it.

The explosion that it created was several times larger than Astley's. The huge bang caused the dismal creature to evaporate into nothing, taking half of the bridge with it.

"Oh shit!" swore Xephos, as he poked his head up from beneath the hump of the bridge, catching sight of the damage as he did so. "Ah..." he breathed.

Xephos heard what sounded like Granny Bacon wailing in fright at the sound of the explosion. He walked onto the remnants of the bridge, the gap was wide enough to jump across, easily. But before him was the sign had pledged a warning of the crumbling ruins that lay ahead, it had been ripped in two.

"Well the ruins are even more crumbling now." chuckled Xephos.

He looked down the river to his left, and saw the creeper closer to him had seen him as well, and was now splashing towards him.

Xephos took a step backward, then ran forward and leapt over the gap and landed on the other side of the moat, which was in this area a cobble stone landing for the narrow bridge.

The creeper that had seen him had swam to the edge of the river bank, and was trying to scramble up the steep banks, which was not easily done considering the creeper's leg placement.

Xephos gripped his sword firmly in both of his bandaged hands, and rushed the creeper, landing a hearty slash across it's slimy, goo-caked face. The creeper recoiled and began to hiss uncontrollably as it's kin had always done.

Xephos dove backward just in time to avoid the explosion that caused water to cascade in all directions. Xephos looked over at where the beast had burst into pieces, it was directly behind the house conjoined to the Elysium, but thankfully the water had somewhat grounded the explosion, and the house was untouched.

"Argh!" groaned Xephos, clutching his head. "I'm no good at this!"

He looked up-stream and saw one last creeper, that appeared to be somewhat frolicking in the water in a grotesque fashion with it's back to Xephos.

"Creeper River." murmured Xephos. as he slid down the bank and into the icy cold waist deep water.

Xephos had barely made a ripple as he entered the moat, even less so a splash, but by some disturbing means, the creeper seemed to sense his presence. It turned to face Xephos, face in a silent scream.

The creeper worked it's way towards Xephos, undulating it's legs in a squid-like fashion when it came into deeper water and had to swim. Xephos brandished his sword above his head in a similar way to a primitive warrior would brandish a spear. He surged towards the creeper, which followed suite, hissing softly.

As the creeper came within reach of his sword, Xephos swung it savagely at the monstrosity, missing the first time, but curving the sword back round for a second shot just as the creeper began to swell and hiss. The second swing landed heavily on the creeper's neck, and the second the sword touched it's skin, the creeper jumped backwards with an indignant hiss. The creeper's thick gooey outer "shell" was a very efficient defense mechanism that greatly softened any blow that it sustained.

The creeper had swam back towards the Elysium, but Xephos gave chase, swinging wildly. The creeper then lunged towards him, fit to burst.

"No!" yelled Xephos as he dove back into the water behind him, holding his longsword in one hand as he curled into a tight ball. A shock wave blasted through the water, but Xephos had thrown himself far enough backwards that the it had no effect on him.

He breeched the icy surface, completely sodden, the creeper was, naturally gone, but thankfully the water had once again completely dulled the explosion, and there was no damage done to the Elysium.

"Ah!" sighed Xephos as he waded back to the part of the bank of which he'd entered the moat. "I'm no good at this, I'm failing!"

He hauled himself out of the water, his hair pasted to his forehead, water trickling down his neck and down his back, making him shiver uncontrollably.

He'd gotten soaked, blown up a bridge, disturbed most of the City with the explosions, and he still had nothing to show for it.

After he'd pulled himself onto the bank, he walked up a small hillock that the path at the landing of the bridge led to, the path the turned left, and continued along at the same hight, until it came to the doors of the old castle, it's iron, bared doors covered with ivy and creepers (the plant type).

To Xephos's left was the forest that they'd past through of their way to the City, the snow that dusted it's tips still lay atop them, and a blanket of white snow covered half of the small plain that lay before Xephos. The lawn was in a sort of basin, the walls of it were the hill that Xephos stood on, the forest to his left, another small cluster of trees rising over a hill on the right, and, a bare ridge in front, with no vegetation save a single beech tree.

But over the tree tops on the left forest, Xephos could faintly see something very curious in the distance. It appeared to be a tall bridge stretching over the tree tops and vanishing into the fog that was hanging about the forest.

Xephos wondered where it could lead, they hadn't seen the access point as they walked along the road to Mistral City, which it seemed to be very near to.

Xephos pondered this matter as he leapt back over the bridge, his efforts somewhat hampered by his heavy gear and the fact he was jumping upwards as well as outwards. but nevertheless, he landed sure-footed on the remnants of the bridge, and looked up, preparing to walk his sodden arse back to Granny Bacon's. But as he approached the end of the bridge, he heard the door of the Tea Shoppe slam, and saw the blue clothed Skylord Lysander hurrying out, muttering something.

It did not take Xephos long to realize that Lysander was heading down Victoria Street, and he may discover that Astley was gone.

Xephos picked up his pace and legged it towards the ridge, leaving his wet foot prints behind him. Lysander must not find out what had happened to Astley.

Xephos had stormed out of the Tea Shoppe saying that he was going hunting for creepers. It was ridiculous, really, he'd left just because Honeydew would not play Billiards by the rules. Honeydew struck another ball with the thick cue, which he then set down, and swaggered up towards the counter, where Lysander was talking with Granny Bacon about what had gone on in the City during his absence.

Honeydew set his beefy elbow heavily down on the bench, slightly jarring it on the stony bench-top, but he didn't let Granny or Lysander see this, although it hurt like a mule bite.

"Do you have any Golden Apples?" asked Honeydew sweetly, compared to his last request for one, in which he called her, if not fondly, a lovely grey lower bearded minx.

"Yes, dear." answered Granny Bacon, looking up at the dwarf with a twinkle in her beady eyes. "But they are very rare, I'd have to charge you."

Lysander had produced a fine compass from his pocket, and was tinkering with it on the bench, perhaps calibrating it or something of that type.

"Right!" exclaimed Honeydew, bringing his fist down of the counter so hard that the compass bounced off of it, and landed on the floor even in Lysander's attempts to catch it.

"My compass!" he stooped and picked it up, cradling it carefully between his hand like a baby bird, but it had no outward signs of damage.

"How much would you charge me for them?" asked Honeydew, disregarding Lysander, who stalked to the rear of the shoppe like a hunched, brooding, shadow.

Suddenly, the sound of an explosion racked through the City, it subsided as soon as it started, leaving the City's inhabitants quite shaken.

"Heavens to bestsy! Oooo, what was that!" cried Granny Bacon, as she quavered like a dry leaf.

"Damn it, Fumblemore!" swore Lysander at the back of the room, as he glanced up at the ceiling.

"Heh, yeah!" said Honeydew in forced laughter, knowing that it was unlikely that it was Fumblemore that caused the explosion.

But Honeydew returned to bartering with Granny Bacon, who turned and looked up at the menu after Honeydew had repeated his question referring to the Apple's price.

"Eight diamond." confirmed Granny Bacon, of course, Honeydew had already known this, but it was a part of his scheme.

There was another large explosion, causing Granny Bacon to jump. Lysander looked up from the compass that he was tinkering with, an expression of curiosity plastered across his hard face.

Honeydew was beginning to get annoyed. It was hard enough trying to haggle down the price with a women as staunch as Granny Bacon, with out those explosions resonating through the City, by someone who was most defiantly not Fumblemore.

"Eight Diamond?" questioned Honeydew as he raised him voice higher to a sort of shocked, unbelieving pitch. "Eight Diamond? Even for me?" this is when Honeydew started to do what Xephos called: Getting his Dwarven Charm rollin'. "You beautiful old thing!" he winked at her and shot her a dazzling grin, his gold tooth positively sparkling.

Lysander rolled his eyes at the doorway, he understood what Honeydew was attempting to do, but Granny Bacon had been in the business for years, and there was no doubting that, although exquisitely prepared, some of the items were over priced.

"Oh!" wailed Granny Bacon. "For you dear, I can go to seven!"

Lysander sighed, but Honeydew knew better than showing relief at this point in a deal, so he kept smiling, nodding curtly at Granny.

"You can work off the rest later." cooed Granny Bacon, returning Honeydew's wink with one of her own.

A third explosion.

Honeydew winced. Dammit Xephos, he thought.

"Sounds good," said Honeydew, delicately lifting Granny's hand and kissed her ring finger, which bore no ring. "very good..."

Inside Honeydew wasn't really anticipating the "working off the rest", in fact it was quite the opposite. He was getting quite full of Bacon.

"Fumblemore isn't usually this bad..." mused Lysander, pushing the door open, and scampering outside.

Honeydew realized that Lysander would be heading down Victoria Street, where they'd killed Astley. He may find out.

"WAS THAT ME!" yelled the distant voice of Fumblemore.

"Well, Granny." said Honeydew as he walked backwards towards the door. "We've got those diamonds to collect and an arse-load of other things to collect, so..." he reached the doorway. "Bye!" he turned and leapt out of the doorway, and nearly got run over by Xephos.

"Whoah!" cried Xephos, skidding along the path, slowing himself so that he didn't ram into Honeydew as hard.

"Good gods, man!" barked Honeydew, only now noticing that his friend was soaked through. "How many creepers _were_ there? And how many did you kill?"

"There were three." stated Xephos, hurrying round the corner.

"But," said Honeydew. "There were three explosions."

Xephos nodded.

"Notch above!" cried Honeydew, clasping his head between his hands. "So you did not get a single sulphur?"

Xephos shook his head, and pointed down towards the (former) Astley Residence, Lysander was standing outside of it, looking puzzled.

The two doubled their pace towards him, hearts beating twice their normal rate.

Lysander was standing facing towards the Astley house, rubbing his chin as he did when he was thinking hard or thoroughly perplexed.

"Eer..." said Honeydew awkwardly. "What's wrong?"

"Where's the sign gone?" asked Lysander, nonplussed, staring at the wall.

That's what ha been missing. They'd both felt that something was amiss and this was it. The blast that Astley caused had ripped sign to sherds, if it had still existed, they would've seen it.

Lysander had not noticed the hair-thin cracks in the wall where Xephos and Honeydew had piled up the broken boards seamlessly.

"And where's Mister Astley?" Lysander wondered aloud, looking through one of the windows, which he then left, and went for he the door.

Xephos and Honeydew, who'd both been awkwardly looking about, saw Lysander lay his hand on the heavy door, and push it open. Their breath left their bodies and their heart stopped. When Xephos had attempted to open the door, and one must note that he was purposely trying to stop it from breaking, it had fallen on it's face.

Lysander laid his palm on the handle, and pushed the door open.

By some miracle, bestowed by the god and creator Notch, the door swung open without even creaking. Lysander carefully stepped into the room, ready to back out.

"Oooooh, you forgot to replace the sign, you foooool!" Honeydew hissed, turning angrily to Xephos, his dark eyes aflame with black fire.

"You should stay outside, heroes." warned Lysander, hand on the pommel of his sword. "Where could Astley be?" breathed Lysander inside the dim room as he poked about.

Suddenly, Honeydew panicked. He lost his marbles, shouting at the top of his (Now very high) voice:

"WE DIDN'T BURN HIM!"

This was not entirely false, there had been no burning on their behalf, but Astley did blow up himself, which may sort of count as burning, if you classify spontaneous combustion under burning. Indeed, that cry seemed to be something that Honeydew yelled in times of stress, as he'd said something similar when Old Peculier had discovered them at Israphel's charred grave in Terrorvale.

"Calm down, friend!" hushed Xephos, as Lysander had not seemed to have noticed or not paid attention to the Dwarf's cry.

They both cast about in desperation. Should they stay, and risk being found out. Or they could run, But what then? How would Peculier get the potion? They could not abandon their mission.

"Oh crap!" swore Xephos, his allegiances torn. "I don't know what to do!"

Lysander began up the stairs.

Xephos knew that when Lysander saw that Astley wasn't upstairs, he would put two and two together and confront them. So he ran.

He turned and sprinted down the length of Victoria Street, but stopped once Honeydew called after him;

"I think you've gotten away with it, Xephos. It's okay, it's okay."

Xephos turned and saw his friend walking towards the open doorway.

"I mean what you've gotten away with there is _murder," _

Xephos ran cautiously back towards the Astley house, while Honeydew continued to talk.

"Of an upstanding member of society," he disappeared through the doorway. "This pillar of the community that is Mister Astley."

Xephos approached the doorway, and Honeydew emerged from it, Lysander tromping down the stairs.

"So where's the sulphur?" whispered Honeydew through his thick forest of a beard, as he pushed Xephos to the side.

"There wasn't really any sulphur there," responded Xephos awkwardly, while Lysander was taking a last poke around the room. "I thought that there may a hidden chest"

Honeydew slapped his hand onto his own face.

"I though that it may have a whole lot of sulphur in there, but no."

Lysander emerged from the house looking thoroughly troubled.

"He's not here!" rumbled Lysander, looking about in worry incase the creeper may leap out from around any corner.

Xephos tried to look innocent, plastering an expression of shock across his face that was akin to the one that he wore when Honeydew was starting his romance with Granny Bacon.

"How mysterious!" cooed Honeydew in mock fascination, as Lysander looked into space as he thought.

"Well, let us not not dwell on this intriguing matter." stated Xephos, glancing up at the darkening sky. "It is getting late, we should return to your home, Skylord, and rest before we attempt to infiltrate Jasper's house."

"But there is a creeper loose in the City-" plead Lysander.

"I have a feeling that we needn't worry about Mister R. Astley any more." assured Honeydew, putting an arm around Lysander's shoulders, and giving Astley a first name.

Xephos's stomach lurched. Was his friend about to give him up? But he would never do that!

"Why would you say that, Dwarf?" asked Lysander suspiciously, eyeing him moodily.

"Dwarven Know-How!" responded Honeydew with a laugh.

The three set off towards the Elysium, down Victoria Street as the sky grew dark, they once again grew tired, and were beginning to stumble as they climbed the stairs up the Ridge.

Lysander turned warily to Honeydew, his eyelids beginning to droop.

"How much did Granny offer for the Apple, again?" he asked, covering his mouth as he yawned.

"Seven." nodded Honeydew. "Seven diamonds."

"Argh." groaned Lysander. "Where shall we acquire seven diamonds?"

They reached the top of the Ridge, the moon beginning to shine over the trees in the east.

"Ah!" yelled Xephos, dispelling the sleep from all of the others, and stopping them in their tracks. "Maybe though in one of the chests in Skylord Jasper's house there will be some sulphur!"

"Oh yeah!" sighed Honeydew as the continued to walk along the cobblestone path back to the Elysium. He looked in the direction of Jasper's house. "I wonder If he is still in, he can't still be having a bath, surely."

"I will wager the he is!" assured Lysander, looking slightly humored. "He can stay in that tub of his for entire days and nights at a time, and when he emerges, he's like a prune."

"Then why don't we just wait 'till he does emerge from his bath?"

They reached the door of Lysander's Elysium. Lysander reached for the polished knob, but held it shut, he sighed.

"Because I fear that Peculier will not last that long." he turned the knob and entered the dark house. "And by the looks of all of the "supplies" that I notice Jasper had set out, I'll say that he'll be there for a while longer than usual this time."

They followed Lysander into the house, and sat down on two of the benches, Honeydew on the one beneath the window, and Xephos on the one at the wall that he'd slept one two whole nights ago. Lysander, however continued towards the stairs.

"Are you going to check on Old Peculier?" asked Honeydew, getting to his feet.

Lysander nodded, but gestured for Honeydew to be seated.

"We should do our best not to fluster him." hushed Lysander, as he began to walk slowly up the stairs.

"Peculier?" they heard him ask as he reached the top floor. This was followed by a sort of moan of acknowledgement.

Honeydew, who had not been seated, walked over to the fireplace, and lifted two stout logs from the basket next to it, placing them if the hearth. He then stood back and pulled out his Flint and Steel, striking them together with the sound of a hundred flints clashing into the tinder.

Xephos, now completely dry since hid dip in Creeper River watched sleepily as the flames sprayed onto the wood like rain, sticking to it and eating away at it. The flames illuminating the room. He'd always been impressed by it, but tonight he was just too sleepy, they really should stop only sleeping every second night.

Lysander walked back down the stairs, looking grim.

"How is he?" asked Xephos, stifling a yawn.

Lysander shook his head.

"Not well." he responded solemnly. "He hasn't slept a wink, and his leg is no better." He sat down in his armchair by the fire. "The only thing that has improved is he will talk, but only in short sentences, he seems to be getting older and older. It is uncanny."

No one spoke for a long while. Honeydew and Xephos both wished to go and just see Peculier, their dear friend whom they had not seen in days. But they knew better, the man needed his rest. So they shrugged off their gear, placing their bows, swords, arrows, and armor at the foot of the benches.

They lay back on the benches as Honeydew hummed a low, peaceful beat.

Lysander who was sitting it his chair, looking ahead into nothingness, his fingers knitted over his belly.

"Hey Lysander?" yawned Honeydew.

Lysander did not quaver. He was the sort of man that it took allot of effort to surprise.

"Yes, Honeydew." It was a statement, not a question.

"What do you have in mind for getting us onto Jasper's roof?"

Lysander smiled. Now that was something that he was looking forward to.

"You'll see in due time, my friend. Sleep now."

Honeydew looked over to Xephos, who was snoring softly in his bright red shirt. He closed his eyes and as if by some magic he fell into sleep.

But Lysander sat, as he often did, his mind active with many problems that may await them. And it was well into the night before his body forced his brain into sleep, as the crescent moon hung above Mistral City, casting the city with an ethereal light.

Lysander and Xephos awoke to Honeydew closing the door of the Elysium, laden with small packages wrapped in wax paper, steaming, and bearing the mark of Grandma Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe.

The smell of freshly cooked meat wafted through the rooms, causing Lysander and Xephos's stomachs to rumble and mouths to water.

Honeydew strode into the middle of the room laughing like a ginger bearded Father Yuletide, the fat man whom climbed down chimneys at the end of the year to fill the stockings of good children with gifts.

"Wha?" said Xephos sleepily.

"Breakfast." answered Honeydew, letting the packages that he was holding in his arms drop to the floor. "Is served!"

Lysander stooped to pick up one of the parcels, unwrapped it and a solid slab of rasher bacon lay within.

"What is this?" asked Lysander in shock.

"Like I said." giggled Honeydew. "Breakfast!"

He too bent over and ripped into a bacon package. Chewing quickly and swallowing even more so.

"How in the name of Notch did you afford this?" asked Xephos suspiciously, he looked at all of the packages on the floor. There was seven that still lay unopened. "You didn't-"

"Granny said that she'd put it on my "tab"." said Honeydew, cocking an eyebrow.

Xephos sighed, but bent and picked up a bacon pack, opening it and chewing slowly.

"Save some for Peculier." said Xephos around another mouthful of bacon.

"Mmm!" responded Honeydew, swallowing the last of his bacon. "And I suggest that we pack the rest in case we need a boost!"

"A good idea." said Lysander, stretching out in the sunlight casting through the window. "I will go and present a package to him, and see if he shall eat."

Xephos and Honeydew looked at each other.

"Well...Skylord?" asked Honeydew as Lysander got to his feet holding a package from the ground.

"Yes?" replied Lysander, looking at the two of them in suspicion.

"Well..." started Honeydew. "Maybe we could go up at see Peculier. After all, we haven't seen him in days."

Lysander shook his head.

"No. He has been overcome by sickness, and I do not know how he could react to you, but he seems to trust me."

"Right?" said Honeydew, seating himself on a bench.

Lysander turned and ran swiftly back up the stairway. After a while Honeydew and Xephos heard murmuring upstairs.

Honeydew turned to Xephos, who'd been packing bacon into their bags.

"Right." he said sternly.

The both of them ran to the foot of the stairwell, eavesdropping on the noises that they could hear coming from above.

"On the bed, on the bed!" croaked Peculier in his croaky voice. "Put the bacon on the bed. I may have it later. I am not hungry."

"Alright, Peculier." said Lysander apologetically. "We are going to go and retrieve the ingredients for the potion Fumblemore is making for you."

Peculier grunted. And the heroes saw the large shadow of Skylord Lysander fall across the stairs as he walked towards it.

Xephos darted across the room on swift feet, and continued to fill the satchels with food, to make himself look busy. While Honeydew ran over to his gear heavyfootedly, a large thumping sound produced by his feet easily making upstairs.

Honeydew was just fastening his sword to his back as Lysander reached the bottom of the stairs, eyeing them suspiciously.

"Nearly ready to go, Skylord?" asked Xephos as he slipped on his chest plate, doing up several buckles and straps.

"I am when you are." answered Lysander as Xephos and Honeydew continued to pull on their equipment.

After a few minutes they were ready to embark up to the upper levels of Mistral City. To descend down onto the balcony of Jasper's house to retrieve a golden record to that they would trade with Father Braeburn for a Golden Holy Apple that they would give to a crazed Wizard to mix into a potion with a vast multitude of other ingredients to give to their ailing old friend upstairs.

It was all getting rather complicated.

"Alright," said Xephos, as they left the Elysium. "shall we go and do the dive from the top?"

"Let's do it." agreed Honeydew. "Push it to the limit."

Xephos ran ahead to the foot of the Sky Tower in excitement, ready to drop down from the top of walk ways and infiltrate Jasper's stronghold.

He was just starting up the stairs, when he heard Lysander outside.

"That's dangerous, Hero." he warned.

Xephos ran outside, and turned to see Lysander standing at left the corner of the Tower, next to the cemetery, tilting his head as something moved up the wall out of Xephos's sight, but he had a good idea what it was.

"I know what I'm doing, Skylord!" yelled Honeydew, as Xephos rounded the corner.

Honeydew was scaling up the outside of the tower like and insect, grabbing at the large, jutting stone blocks, which seemed to serve excellent handholds. It seemed as though he had a little _too_ much adrenalin.

"That's dangerous _and_ slow." called Lysander to the dwarf, who was already ten yards above the ground.

He looked down, his face grinning.

"Is that a challenge, Skylord?"

"No-"

But Honeydew began to climb, doubling his speed as he scampered up the wall, after a few seconds, he disappeared in a thicket of one of the oak trees that grew up next to the Tower.

"Let us make a point to him that we show him just how slow it really is." said Xephos to Lysander, and dragged him into the Sky Tower. They began to run around and around the giant swirling stairway, Lysander in the lead.

Xephos made a point of stopping at every time they rounded to the side of the tower that Honeydew was climbing up, and looking out one of the huge cross shaped windows, to see if the dwarf was passing it by.

On his third circuit, Lysander far ahead. Xephos looked out the window, over the City, and near the window, a large hand reached up and grasped at a handhold near the base of the cross.

Honeydew was lifting himself up the Tower like a huge spider, lit up in the morning sun. He noticed Xephos standing, looking at him, and waved.

"It is actually pretty slow!" he yelled through the glass, Xephos was just able to hear him, and he gave his friend the thumbs up and pointed upwards. He then dashed off around the stairway.

Honeydew began again to pull him and his great weight up the Tower. he was past half way, and high above him the massive dirt diamond, that was very close to the Sky Tower, had four waterfalls spurting from it, one on the side that Honeydew was climbing. The water dispersed and rained down on him, turning the rocks slightly slippery. He tightened his grasp.

He soldiered on, pulling on up him and his kit's immense weight up with him. He began to sing a song to keep up his morale. It was a well known song, not only among the dwarves, but all the people of the world.

_Row, row, row your boat, gently up the stream!_

_Merrily, merrily, merrily,_

He paused, for he'd forgotten the words.

"Na, na, na, na, na!"

Then they suddenly returned to him.

_Life is but a dream!_

He hadn't sung that song since he last went canoeing with some children back in Dwergholm. He'd been a grown Dwarf, even more grown that most. The children had all wanted to sit in his custom made, very large canoe, as he sang that very same song, their faces only just starting to get their stubble as they too sang along.

He was now coming towards the top, after what had seemed like and eternity of pulling himself up the side of the Tower. The water from the dirt structure was falling more heavily now, and Honeydew shimmied to the side to avoid getting completely soaked.

At long last he came level with the middle of the dirt structure, the top half a dirt pyramid sort of shape. The edge of the pyramid was only one and a half yards away from the wall of the tower, that still went up for another five or so yards.

Honeydew, once level with the dirt structure's midpoint, leaned back slowly, pressing his large back to it. The water fall whisked over the edge next to him, apparently it and all of the other three water falls sprung from a single spring of water at the tip of the pyramid and tumbled over the four edges.

The dwarf shimmied further and further up the edge of the pyramid, until he had only his feet pressed firmly against the Tower, and his buttocks against the pyramid.

He gave a kick with his feet and he slid backward onto the to half of the dirt diamond. He now realised that the entire thing was like a ziggurat, it had five tiers of dirt stepping up to the tip, where the apparently infinite water spring tumbled down the grass covered levels where it toppled over the edge and down into the grave yard.

Honeydew looked up at the top of the tower, then towards the top of the ziggurat. At the tip, they were about the same height, if anything the ziggurat was higher. If he moved up to the second highest tier, he could easily make a jump and grab a hold of one of the fences that lined the walkway that stemmed of of the Sky Tower.

He climbed the first tier that was about as high as his shin, then the next, and the next, and the next.

Xephos had reached the top of the tower long before Honeydew had, he'd even peered over the edge and seen the dwarf climbing up the side like a squirrel. It was fairly obvious that the dwarf was going to at least rest at the top of the strange, double sided ziggurat. And as Xephos looked towards it he noticed a walkway that led to the base of it from the floating island that they'd felled the tree to get to Fumblemore's Tower.

Honeydew would unlikely notice this, and attempt to make a foolish jump, but if Xephos could get up and around onto the walkway that led to the odd dirt structure, then he could get Honeydew to lower himself down onto the walkway.

Xephos ran along the walkway that started at the Sky Tower, and split onto the one that led towards the island where they felled the tree.

When he got there he trotted carefully down the cobblestone pathway that weaved down the side of the island, and to the walkway, but as Xephos reached the foot of the walkway, he noticed something that he'd been too foolish to notice before from the Sky Tower. The walkway, far more narrow than all of the others had no fencing, in fact it was very similar in fashion to the walkways that coiled about Fumblemore's tower.

Xephos set foot warily on the walkway, he was walking sort of hunched over, hands facing towards the walkway, but he dared not look down.

The spindly path led off on a parallel angle to the Dirt Double-Ziggurat, and about twenty yards ahead, it turned and led to the bottom of it, where a small opening gaped like a mouth.

Xephos looked up and saw Honeydew standing on the lip of the dirt ziggurat, looking up at the fence that ran along the out side of the broad walkway, as though he was going to make a jump for it.

Xephos called out to him, but he was too far away for Honeydew to hear him. Honeydew simply turned and walked up the a few of the tiers of the ziggurat, the lush, green grass, long and tapering as it swayed to and fro in the morning wind.

Xephos set off again at a slightly faster speed, forcing himself to not look down at the City far below that had almost been his doom two nights ago. He flexed his bandaged hands.

Xephos finally reached the turn that led towards the dirt, he looked up but could not see Honeydew any more, then suddenly he saw him and Lysander stand up behind the walkway, which the dirt structure was blocking his view of. It seemed to Xephos that Honeydew had jumped and grabbed a hold of the rail, and Lysander had needed bend over to hoist him up.

"Are you vandalising the walkways?" Lysander had asked Honeydew as he'd leapt towards the railing and grabbed a hold of it, his weight causing it to crack a little.

Lysander then noticed a small figure standing alone on the precarious walkway. But soon Xephos had moved out of sight, he appeared to be heading towards the entrance of the structure.

Xephos walked steadily towards the open mouth that led into the dark structure.

"What the hell is this?" breathed Xephos as the edged further towards the doorway, but unfortunately, before he could get through the door he'd have to walk through a stream of water that poured down from the lip of the ziggurat.

He took a tentative first step into the thick stream, the wood beneath his foot was slick with water and slime, and he quickly pushed forward with his other leg, propelling him through the waterfall, soaking him again. He nearly lost his balance and fell into the graveyard, but he placed a hand on the dirt wall before him to stop his fall.

He got to his feet and stared at the opening in the sloping wall. There was something oddly repellant about the room inside, it seemed to be dimly lit by two redstone torches, which essentially are just sticks with solidified redstone dust attached to the top, they emitted a faint glow and a sort of energy that can be harnessed in complex circuitry.

Xephos could see, by the light of these redstone torches, two boulders, side by side, with what appeared to be writing carved into the faces of them. He could nearly make out the characters on the rocks, he took a few steps into the room, and ran up to the boulders set into the slope of the structure. The ancient text read:

_Hallowed are_

_we who inhabit_

_the sacred city._

_We are the_

_Oathkeepers_

_sworn to duty._

Xephos read swiftly, but out of nowhere, a savage hissing echoed around him, before he could even turn around, the creeper exploded.

Xephos was thrown against the boulders, knocking his breath from his lungs, his armor taking most of the impact.

But then the floor gave away.

Xephos fell through the air spinning head over heels hurtling towards Mistral City.

"Shit!" he swore as the ground rushed up to meet him. "Waaaaaahhhhh!"

His scream was cut short as he hit the ground. His divine armor shattered into splinters of shinning shrapnel that cascaded through the sky, shimmering like fish in a sea of air, as his back collided into the dirt with a crack.

Moments before the blackness came, Xephos looked up and realised that he was in a hole. He'd landed in his own grave, and at the edge of his grave a dark, hazy figure stood. It appeared that Death had come for him. And it appeared as though his very finger reached into his mind, and as the last act of kindness the Xephos would receive, shut his eyes for him.

And there Xephos lay, a cold body in his grave, surrounded by darts of silver embedded in the walls of his tomb. The man that legend says fell from the skies was now condemned to the earth, where his body would now rest for an eternity in the tranquil City of Mistral.

Or so he thought.

Lysander and Honeydew heard the explosion over by the dirt ziggurat, they looked over at it as the floor fell away.

"The Temple!" cried Lysander, staring at the top half of it, the other being completely annihilated.

"What's going on down there?" Fumblemore asked loudly from the top of his tower, this was quickly followed by a holler from the enraged Jasper, who must've opened a window.

"WHAT THE DEVIL WAS THAT? FUMBLEMOOOORE!"

Jasper's voice, being so high-pitched, Fumblemore could actually hear. And he responded by yelling from the doorway of his study.

"Eh? Me?" he yelled.

At least Honeydew now knew the Temple's real name, instead of calling it the Double Dirt Pyramid Ziggurat with grass growing on it and water flowing from it. But suddenly Honeydew did not care about the name. All that he could focus on was the figure of Xephos, tumbling end over end towards the ground.

Honeydew cried aloud Xephos's name, as if it my slow his decent. But his friend continued to fall, screaming as he did so.

Xephos hit the ground, and the screaming stopped.

All was silent. Honeydew and Lysander could no longer see Xephos, for he'd disappeared into his open grave.

A bell, probably from the Church, tolled, signaling the hour and sending a flock of ravens roosting on the roof to scatter into the air.

Lysander and Honeydew looked on in utter shock. There was no possible way that anyone could survive a fall like that, there was no avoiding the truth either.

Xephos was dead.

Honeydew felt a hole open inside him, he had not had this sensation when Xephos had been dragged off with the tree, perhaps because he'd had some hope that Xephos may have survived. But not this time. This time he'd seen it really happen, he'd seen his friend fall, and there was no surviving one like that.

Honeydew leaned forward on the rail, grasping at his neck, 'till he found the runestone. It was useless if there was too much damage. That was why he'd not even given the thing a thought when Xephos fell with the tree.

"Notch damn it." swore Lysander, taking off his cap, and holding it to his chest.

"Xephos..." sighed Honeydew silently.

They had traveled so far together, the Dwarf and the Spaceman, they were a born team. Now one was gone, leaving the other in lost, in this treacherous world of evil and confusion.

"Are we going to have to utilize his grave?" Honeydew asked quietly.

He looked solemnly down at the grave where Xephos fell. The small figure of Father Braeburn was standing over the grave that the limp form of Xephos now lay in, the shattered slivers of armor lying across his chest like silver fur.

Braeburn stepped down into the grave, by Xephos's feet, the splinters of armor clinking beneath his feet.

Miscellaneous items from Xephos's satchel lay scattered all over graveyard, for it had come undone during the explosion, and everything had fallen out.

The Father stooped low over the young man's body. He'd heard the explosion and seen him fall from the window of his church. It was a such a waste, the man had many, many years in front of him.

Braeburn took off his glasses and placing them on the rim of the grave, leant carefully over Xephos's body, avoiding the sharp quills of strange steel that bristled from the walls of the grave, to bestow the Death Rites upon him.

Braeburn righted Xephos's head, that was leaning to his right, so that it stared upward with closed eyes. Braeburn began to lift Xephos's bandaged hands onto his chest, as was the proper way to have the dead positioned when the Death Rites were bestowed unto them.

But before Braeburn could place Xephos's hands, wrapped in cloth, onto his chest, an angry roar reached his ears.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

Father Braeburn looked above him and saw the tall dwarf that had been with poor Xephos and Lysander. He was leaning over the edge, hundreds of feet up, but his voice still clearly legible. Lysander pulled the dwarf back from the rail, and holding him by the shoulders, appeared to be giving him his condolences, but also explaining that Braeburn had to do this. The dwarf looked ahead with eyes blinded by tears, running river of their own down his chiseled face and rough beard.

Braeburn returned to the body. In his days as a Altar boy, he would cry when the deceased would come in to be blessed and buried, but now he'd seen his fair share of deaths, and preformed the rights unto them. It still tore at his heart to see someone robbed of their life, even if they were going to the Aether, the heaven in which the Great Notch, the creator of all made his Golden City.

Braeburn continued to lower Xephos's hands onto his chest, right hand beneath left, the symbol of welcoming. As Braeburn placed Xephos's hard hands onto his chest, coated in armor shrapnel, something seemed amiss

But something was not quite right.

Then Braeburn noticed it. with his hands placed on Xephos's over his chest, he could feel something, a very slight beat of two repeating inside his chest.

Xephos was alive.

Braeburn placed his ear to Xephos's breast, the splinters of armor prickled against his cheek. He could most definitely hear his heart beating, if not faintly. But by some miracle, he'd lived.

Braeburn lifted Xephos into his arms, the shards of diamond-like metal falling off of his body and onto the floor of his grave, cradling him as he knelt on the ground as though he were holding a new-born babe.

Braeburn looked to the sky, he saw Honeydew and Lysander, looking down at the Father, a mixture of anger and confusion on their faces as the sun burned brightly behind them.

"He's alive!" laughed Father Braeburn up towards them. They looked as though they'd misheard, and their faces became more inquisitive.

"HE"S ALIVE!" yelled Braeburn in happiness. He'd bestowed deathly words onto many, but not once had he given life. And nothing would ever give him more joy than what had just happened.

Realisation dawned on Honeydew's face, but he did not look jubilant, but flabbergasted.

"Alive?"

The words just managed to reach Braeburn's ears from Honeydew's mouth, he seemed to say it almost timidly. Father Braeburn just nodded.

Honeydew fell back and sat on the floor of the walkway his back resting against the posts of the fence running along the side.

"He's alive!" wheezed Honeydew, running his hand over his face. "Alive! But how?"

"Indeed." rumbled Lysander, his face relieved yet intrigued.

The next second, Honeydew burst into hysterical laughter.

Down below, Braeburn felt Xephos begin to stir. he looked down at him, lying almost limp in his arms. Xephos opened his eyes for what seemed like the first time in an age. He peered up at Braeburn, seemingly in confusion.

"I should be dead."

Was the first thing that he spoke when he awoke from his sleep.

"What?" asked Braeburn, brushing a length of sharp splinters from the wall of the grave and leaning Xephos against it. "Hero, are you alright?"

"I'm fine." responded Xephos, placing his bandaged hands on the floor of the grave, pushing upwards and delicately bringing his leg beneath him until he was standing, as though he was the Creator, Notch, newly risen from the dead. It was a wonder that he'd by some powers managed to survive the fall, but to have no broken limbs?

"Apparently I'm invulnerable."

"Blessed by the Holy Notch, you are!" answered Braeburn in awe.

"But how is this possible?" whispered Xephos, flexing his arms, confirming that he had no ailment whatsoever. It seemed that only now he realised that his armor was no longer on his shoulders.

He cast about and finally realised that it lay all around him, in tiny splinters, shinning like blades of glittering grass. "Perhaps..."

"Indeed," said Father Braeburn, pulling himself out of the grave. "it seems as if your armor, it must have been made of some strong stuff, for it looks as if it has absorbed the entire impact of your fall!"

"Bless you, Daisy." breathed Xephos. Xephos lowered his hand to pick up a handful of the fine splinters, he wished to keep the fragments as a memento, but he soon saw that all of his belongings were scattered around his grave, up to and including his sword, bow and quiver (now empty of arrows), they seemed to have all fallen off during his decent.

He saw his satchel lying nearby, and after thanking Braeburn, he climbed out of his own grave, and shouldered it.

From above, he heard a familiar voice calling to him. He looked up to see Honeydew and Lysander leaning over the edge of the walkway high above, waving at him. He waved back, a tear brimming at his eye, but blinked it away, and continued to recover his gear.

He stowed his bow, lying next to the pond in it's case, onto his back. This was followed by his quiver, however many arrows he could find.

He continued to search for the rest of his inventory, and with the help of Braeburn, he was able to recover the majority it.

Braeburn walked up to Xephos and handed a small bundle wrapped in cloth.

"I have a feeling that this may be important." mumbled Braeburn, handing Xephos the little sulphur that he had collected from the bin.

"Thank you!" sighed Xephos, taking the sulphur from the Father, and placing in carefully amongst the other paraphernalia of his satchel. "It is indeed vitally important."

But Xephos had still not found his sword, after precious minutes of looking, he finally saw it, standing tip first into the ground as though stabbed there, at the foot of Israphel's grave.

It was almost impossible that it could've landed there, halfway across the graveyard, tip first into the ground at the foot of their archenemy's grave. Any lesser man would say that it was an omen, but Xephos knew better than to believe in such things, yet he still walked with caution towards where his sword stood, as if it may be a trap.

he reached the grave of Israphel, and tugged at his sword, for a long while it refused to budge, but after one colossal tug, it was freed, and not a moment too soon. For though he knew the grave was empty, it still unnerved him to be so close to it.

He brought his sword to his leather scabbard, cruelly bent by the fall, as he'd landed on it. But as Xephos slid the keen, glowing blade into it, the scabbard lost it's kink as the blade traveled down the length. Xephos hoped that someday, the scabbard may loose it's crookedness and regain it's former glory.

High above on the walkways, Lysander and Honeydew gazed down at Xephos, he and Braeburn were collecting what could be found of Xephos's gear.

Lysander turned to Honeydew;

"We shall wait for your comrade." he said.

Honeydew shook his head, ginger beard swaying as he did so.

"No." he responded, standing straight up. "He would want us to go ahead and find the walkway above Jasper's house. He'll catch up."

Lysander did not seem entirely sure of this, in fact he seemed to be totally opposed to it. But Honeydew was already pushing past him, (a very difficult and dangerous maneuver to execute on a Sky Walkway) and heading towards the great stone watch tower that Xephos had passed not a day beforehand, save in the opposite direction.

Honeydew ran past the walkway that sprouted out towards the floating island that they felled the tree on, and straight ahead towards a steep descending stairway, leading down to the threshold of the stone monolith that was the tower. He looked behind him and saw Lysander just coming to the stairway, so the dwarf turned right, and trotted carefully down a narrow stone path on the edge of the small, grassy island that the Watch Tower was on.

By the time the path reached ninety degrees from the previous walkway, another stemmed from the island and went straight ahead. Honeydew began to run along this one, and whilst doing so contemplated on the fact that all of the walkways had no supports, save at both ends, where it connected to whichever object it was linking.

Honeydew reached the conclusion that the walkways, however flimsy they looked, were either magical, or made with extremely good craftmanship. Whichever reason, he prayed that it did not get too windy in Mistral City.

By the time Honeydew reached the end of the walkway, it split in two directions; right and left. To the left, it led into the side of the huge floating island that they made the tree bridge on, a small tunnel mouth in it's rocky face, like a pockmark, presumably leading up to the surface of the island.

The right led to another floating island, this one a similar size to the island that the Watch Tower sat atop. Indeed, this one too had a tower, but a different type completely. A lighthouse, striped in white and dark red stood silent sentinel. From the left again from that island, another steeply sloping stairway led up to a long walkway, parallel to the one that Honeydew now stood on, wondering where to go.

On the walkway parallel to the one that he stood on, a small airship was docked, looking somehow lonely and forlorn. Honeydew looked towards the City below. Jasper's house was ahead of him, and the dwarf was sure that the walkway that the left path led to would offer a decent vantage point where they would be able to drop in from.

He took the left path as Lysander caught up with him, breathing hard, but not saying a word, for he could see that Honeydew knew where to go.

Towards the end of the left walkway, there was a small flight of stairs leading up to the Lighthouse Island, that extended over the very walls of the City itself. Honeydew got to the foot of the light tower, it's patterned rings of stone going from white marble to another odd sort of stone the colour of red wine that Honeydew did not recognise. This annoyed him greatly. For he was a Dwarf, and quite a learned one too, so a rock that he did not recognise was almost an upfront insult to his intelligence. He of corse did not mention this to Lysander, for he did not want to appear less educated in the way's of the earth than a _Skylord._

Honeydew turned left at the lighthouse, followed the walkway, and onto the one parallel to the one branching from the lighthouse island. Looking ahead he saw a squat, square based tower floating on a small island at the end of the walkway.

The dwarf walked leisurely towards it, the sun on his back. He craned his neck and saw that the coast of the island was directly above Jasper's Penthouse, offering a prime position for whatever Lysander was planning.

Honeydew was leaning against the wall of the small watchtower chewing a stalk of grass on the island when Lysander arrived, panting slightly.

"I hope that this shall offer a right good "access point" for what ever you are planning, Lysander." said Honeydew in a droll tone.

Lysander peered over the edge, holding the rail of the fence on the walkway that he was standing on.

"It will." grumbled Lysander.

"Any chance you shall reveal your secret means of our, "transportation"?"

Lysander smiled.

"No," he said, a chuckle heaving his chest. "not until our friend joins us."

"Well, he should be along any second now."

"Thank you for your help, father." said Xephos to Braeburn as he walked towards the exit of the cemetery nearest to the Fountains. "Unfortunately, some of my things have vanished." he made a sad face.

"That's...not great." answered Braeburn as he picked his way through the graves after Xephos. "How goes the quest for the Holy Record?"

"We're on the case right now Father!" replied Xephos as he walked out of the wooden archway, turning round to face Father Braeburn. "We're on it."

"I have great faith in you!" said the Father as he stepped past Xephos and walked towards his Church. He stopped at the doorway.

"Already planning the renovations on my Church." he nodded up at the stained-glass apple above. He opened the door and stepped inside, humming a tune that sounded like: "Hum ba, hum ba, hum ba, hum ba.'

Xephos smiled and turned towards the side street that they'd first passed through on their way to Peculier's House. As he jogged towards it, he glanced above, and could just make out the shape of Honeydew running along the walkway that he'd used to find his way back to the Sky Tower, with Lysander far behind. Good, they had started without him, no need to wait for him while they could find a good walkway to access Jasper's House.

He ran past the Granny Bacon's and up the Ridge, past the depressing ruins of Peculier's family home, along the cobble path that ran alongside the Elysium. He reached the foot of the Sky Tower, entered and began his slow ascent to the top of the Tower.

Once he did reach the top of the high tower, he quickly ran to the walkway, stopping briefly and glancing at the dessicated Temple. He grimaced, then, not willing to dwell on the matter, continued to run along the path that led to wherever Honeydew was leading them.

It took him many minutes and an odd chance meeting with a creeper, to reach the island where Honeydew and Lysander were waiting.

Xephos had been running along the long walkway that led to the from the large Watch Tower, when, from atop the envelope of the small airship docked ahead, a creeper leapt towards him.

Notch knows how it got up there, but luckily the creeper did not have very good aim, and plummeted to the right of the walkway, landing with a thud on the roofs of one of the large buildings below, killing itself instantly.

Xephos made a mental note to go and dissect the creeper's cadaver if they did not find enough sulphur in Jasper's house. he then continued to walk along the walkway, making a left where the path split, heading towards the Lighthouse.

Meanwhile, up on the island above Jasper's House, Honeydew was sitting patiently while Lysander was still leaning against the weathered stone wall of the tower, digging his heel into the grass that covered the small island in impatience.

"Is he lost?" asked Lysander, glancing up at the sun. It was the middle of the day.

Honeydew sighed, standing and looking over towards the the Lighthouse, when suddenly Xephos's head popped up from below the stairs, and then he was up on the walkway leading towards their island.

"Oh! No, he's here! He's here!" cried Honeydew pointing to Xephos as he raised his arms and waved a greeting to Lysander and Honeydew.

Xephos ran towards the island, and upon setting foot on it was smothered in a crushing bear-hug administered by Honeydew.

"You son of a bitch!" he sobbed, thumping Xephos on the back, a fresh stream of tears pouring from his eyes.

Xephos looked confused of what to do, but patted his friend on the back as he was lowered to the ground.

Lysander stepped forwards, eyeing Xephos as if he were a phantom.

"It is good to see that you are alive, my friend." he said as Honeydew stepped away from Xephos, wiping his nose as he did so. "But one must ask, how did you survive?"

"Well." answered Xephos. "As you can plainly see," he gestured to his chest, now bare of his armor. "my armor is gone, it somehow absorbed the impact, and I was only knocked-out."

"We saw Father Braeburn was with you." said Honeydew, now recovered from his burst of emotion. "I think he was ready to bury you! He thought you were dead! I mean you were dead, to be fair, but you came back." he began to chuckle at this point. "Much like our Lord and Savior, Notch."

Xephos laughed at this, but Lysander kept his stern expression, for although he prioritised his friends and mission first, he was a very pious man.

"He died for our sins." chuckled Xephos. "The funniest thing happened actually, a creeper tried to jump me from on top of that airship over there." he pointed behind him to the airship in between the the two walkways. "It missed and fell down into the City, was stone dead when it hit the ground."

Honeydew shook his head. "What is it with you and creepers? I think they know that you need sulphur and their trying to help."

They both had a gasp of laughter.

"They keep throwing themselves at me." stated Xephos, who suddenly became very serious. "Okay, okay, I'm with you, so let's do this." he peered over the edge of the island, and down to the roof of Jasper's House. It was a collage of square glass panels bordered with iron, arranged in a dome. The sun reflected off the glass but through the blinding light Xephos could see dozens of chests scattered all over the penthouse.

"Oh right, I can see a few chests down there." said Xephos.

"So how are we going to get down?" asked Honeydew, looking over towards Lysander, who for the first time in a while, smiled, and reached into his satchel.

Xephos and Honeydew expected Lysander to pull out a long length of rope, or pair of very tightly compressed parachutes. But instead he pulled out the bucket that they'd first seen when they were on the beach, the one with the swirl motifs.

The two of them stared at the tankard sized bucket, not sure what to make of it. Eventually Honeydew broke the silence.

"Eer...Lysander? That's a bucket."

Lysander did not seem to de too disheartened by this, in fact he merely rolled his eyes as though he'd expected that they would like this.

"Maybe if you did not interrupt me on the stairs in front of the Portal, Honeydew, you would not be asking that question."

Lysander held the bucket aloft with two hands, in the same way he did on the stairs. The bright sunlight danced upon the swirling waves that gilded the edge of it.

"It is called a Charmed Bucket. A very useful little tool, but very hard to come by, save if one has a Wizard handy."

Honeydew had never heard of a Charmed Bucket before, but it was not surprising, as dwarves were naturally more attracted to technology and engineering, not wizardry and sorcery.

Lysander set the small bucket down on the grass, in the centre of the triangle that they all stood in. They all had their full attention on it.

"So how does this get us down onto Jasper's House?" asked Xephos, who in turn had never heard of a charmed bucket. "How does it work?"

Lysander looked as if he's been wanting to say this for a long while.

"Well, in essence, imagine an entire river in compacted into this bucket, this small bucket. And no matter which way that water flows, it will keep it's shape, it's solidity, even if flowing downward. So that if an object were to be thrown into it, it would travel down it as if it were a slow flowing river." He paused and surveyed the confused faces of the other two. "Understood?"

There was a very long silence as the two of them attempted to wrap their minds about what had just been said. This pause was inevitably broken by Honeydew, who exclaimed very loudly;

"Eh?"

"We don't entirely follow, Skylord."

Lysander sighed.

"Say if I was to pour the contents of this vessel onto the lip of a cliff, a very powerful spring would form, and flow down the cliff, but the steam of water would not separate into droplets, as it would with any common or garden waterfall, it would instead keep a solid form, like a long straw of water. It flows very slowly, allowing one to jump into it and descend at a slow speed, as sure as any parachute. And if you are really game, and a good swimmer, it is even possible to swim up it."

There was an even longer pause after this explanation, which once again was broken by Honeydew.

"I don't believe you." said The Dwarf quickly.

"Yeah, Lysander." backed up Xephos. "What you say is very hard to believe."

"Well, I suppose If someone is to truly believe in something..." he stooped and picked up the stoppered bucket, ripping out the plug and putting it in his pocket, revealing the bucket was full of the most perfect azure blue water. "...One must first see it!"

Suddenly Lysander darted past Honeydew and Xephos to the edge of the island, where he upended the contents onto the lip of the island. The water fell from the bucket in one huge droplet, splashing down onto the grass, sending drops everywhere.

From Xephos and Honeydew's point of view, it seemed as though the water had congealed in the bucket, and had sort of pan-caked onto the ground like a deflated jellyfish. But after a few seconds, they could hear a sound that faintly resembled the sound of a waterfall slowed down.

They walked towards edge of the island, where Lysander was standing, beaming like an excited child.

Honeydew and Xephos very carefully peered over the edge, and saw that the place where the water had first hit the land had indeed acted as a spring, and to their amazement, and long noodle of solid water was slowly flowing down to the squat dome of Jasper's House, it hadn't even reached the bottom yet, it was flowing so slowly.

The two of them stood in shock, and turned towards Lysander to apologise, but they saw that the Skylord had pulled his googles down over his face, and with a grimace on his lips, he ran into the water, yelling; "For Victory!"

Xephos and Honeydew watched in fascination as he descended slowly down the flow of water.

"So..." said Xephos in shock. "I suppose we need to make a careful decent-"

But Honeydew had already leapt into the waterfall, taking a deep breath of air just before his helmed head was submerged into the water, his helmet was nearly washed away, until he reached up and grabbed it, holding it to his skull.

Xephos took a deep breath, totally not convinced with the safety of this waterfall, and ran into the spring, taking a little jump into the water.

As he was submerged, Xephos opened his eyes. The water was clear, blue, and warm. The pillar of liquid was about a two yards in width, and from the outside would've looked like the face of a waterfall curved into a tube. Xephos looked down and saw the blurred image of Honeydew, his red hair flying out behind him, and below him, Xephos could just make out the image of Lysander.

Looking up, Xephos saw the underside of the island slowly getting further and further away. He felt as though he was just floating in water, but slowly heading downward.

At about halfway, a stream of bubbles surged past Xephos. Then another. He looked down, and saw that it was his companions, losing their breath. He too, was yearning for a breath of air, but was worried that if he tried to stick his head out, it would somehow cause a dis-balance, and he would fall out of the stream. He attempted to hold his breath for a while longer, but soon it became too much to bear.

Just to test if it was safe, he reached out with his wet hand, his fingers first breaching the surface of the water, then his arm.

He was now desperate for air and decided that this was safe, so he craned his neck forward, and his head emerged from the water. He squinted as he took in several deep breaths. After he had breathed in enough air, he looked down, and noticed with a twinge of annoyance that Honeydew and Lysander already had their heads sticking out of the water.

"Hello, friend!" called Xephos down to Honeydew, who was not wearing his helmet, and was presumably holding it in one of his hands, which were moving in a jellyfish-like motion, all of his heavy gear was making him descend more quickly than the others, so he was having to compensate.

"Honeydew tilted his head, and smiled at at Xephos, then turned and paid more attention. to the waterfall.

As they approached the bottom of the water fall, Lysander could see the water (which he was very close behind) hit the Penthouse roof with a reasonable thud, and it flowed over the edge onto Jasper's balcony, facing out over the moat on the side facing the Road that they'd came to the City on.

Lysander was a few seconds away from hitting the roof, when he looked up to see how much space separated him from Honeydew, but he wasn't paying attention to how he was landing.

Lysander hit the glass roof with more speed than he intended, which was made wet by all of the water, he slipped and fell, landing on his chest, knocking the breath from him.

The water began to pull him down the shallow curve of the roof with warm liquid hands. He scrabbled to get a handhold, but before he could, he slipped over the edge of the roof, and was falling for a while, and fell flat on his back on Jasper's balcony. Where he lay, for the time being, stunned.

Back on the roof, Honeydew had made his landing and Xephos had just stepped out of the waterfall. Honeydew had not noticed Lysander getting washed away, but Xephos did, however this was over shadowed when they heard the effeminate voice of Jasper shrieking out.

"WHAT WAS THAT NOISE!"

"Oh gods!" cried Xephos, as he and Honeydew worked there way as quickly as they could down the shallow dome of Jasper's roof, they were moving down with their feet first and backs to the sky, and eventually they reached the corner of the house that was situated at the corner post of the City walls.

They were standing on the wooden rim of the dome, and Xephos turned his back to the dome and looked out over the edge.

It wasn't really a time to admire the view, but Xephos just couldn't help himself.

Jasper's House was the tallest in the Lower City, at four stories it was rather high. The view was partially blocked by an airship the same size as the Celaeno docked in a small gantry jutting from the wall of Jasper's house.

The countryside was mainly a plain of short, green, grass with the occasional large clump of trees. On the horizon Xephos could see a small range of rocky mountains, and was busy wondering what lay beyond when he was snapped out of his day-dreaming by the sound of shattering glass.

Xephos turned suddenly and saw Honeydew kicking out a panel of glass with his diamond boots.

"Did you break a window?" asked Xephos loudly as his friend kicked out the jagged shards that were stuck in the iron frame of the glass pane.

"Shhhhh!" hissed Honeydew, holding his finger to his lips.

"WHAT THE HELL?" yelled the voice of Jasper, startling Honeydew so much that he immediately dropped down through the window and onto the long bookshelf that lined the outside of the room.

Xephos shuffled along the wall, and peered his head out over the side that the second-floor balcony that Lysander was on. He was still there, but standing up now, looking up at an apparently nude Jasper who was leaning out of the third story window, and even though he had his back to Xephos, he could tell that he was furious.

Xephos darted back to Honeydew crouching on top of the bookcase looking up at him.

"They've heard the smash!" Xephos hissed. Honeydew's eyes grew wide, like huge shiny black marble. "He doesn't know we're here! Quick! Start ransacking chests!"

Honeydew turned and hopped off the tall bookshelf, drawing his sword at the same time.

"Shit. Shit!" swore the Dwarf, as he reached up and grabbed a chest atop the bookshelf, hefting it to the ground and opening it.

"Quick, quick, quick,quick, quick!" chattered Xephos.

They heard Lysander hollering "RUN!" outside, and they proceeded to tear the Penthouse apart in search of the Golden Record.

"I think he's onto us, Xephos. I think he's onto us!" said Honeydew, distractedly as he ripped open another chest, that did not contain the Record, but amongst other things was a perfect diamond, the size of an eye. He took this with him, he would have to pay Granny Bacon for the apple with it.

"You don't say!" scolded Xephos, referring to Honeydew's comment as he went through two chests, but all that they contained was some, forgotten, moldy mushroom stew, and a few stacks paper.

"LYSANDER, I WILL END YOU!" they heard Jasper yelling as he ran down the stairs, presumably with sword in hand.

"Have any of these got a record in them?" asked Xephos to Honeydew, who had checked the rest of the chests.

The dwarf shook his head.

"Oh shit, this is not good. Um, let's check downstairs."

Xephos ran to the opposite corner on the same side of the roof as where they'd smashed the window, he cold see a hole in the bookshelf, and as he ran over his suspicions were confirmed that it was a stairway.

The stair went behind the bookshelf, then turned right and angled downward, where it emerged into another room.

The room seemed to be Jasper's bedroom, as in the corned that faced towards the fountains, there was a large bed with sky-blue covers.

Xephos saw a chest up against the wall that boarded off the stairs, which had a sign on it with an arrow pointing upstairs saying

_Skyview_

_Library_

Xephos opened the chest as Honeydew tromped down the stairs behind him. Inside the chest was more, smaller sheets of paper, as well as piles of dried, five pronged hemp leaves, and in little bags, some white powder.

It seemed that Jasper was experimenting with allot more than opium.

"Gods! Look at this one, friend!" said Xephos, stepping aside so Honeydew could see. "It's looks like drugs to me!"

Honeydew laughed as he inspected the chest, while Xephos moved over to another, this one at the top of the stairs heading down.

It too contained a large amount of drugs.

"Oh gods!" yelled Xephos. "They've all got it in!"

"Oh my goodness." breathed Honeydew, as they moved onto the other side of the room, where there were a few more chests, and even a record player, which seemed promising.

"There's actually a jukebox here." whispered Xephos, suddenly wanting to keep a low profile, realising that they were that they were supposed to be thieves, and they should've been more quiet.

He turned to Honeydew, asking if he could examine it as he checked the other chests in the room.

"Is there anything in it?" asked Xephos as he examined another chest on the far side of the room.

"No..." sighed Honeydew.

Suddenly an explosion racked the air, causing Xephos to flinch. He would never again react to explosions the same way again after his fall. No matter if it were caused by creeper, Flumblemore, or by some more sinister means, like Honeydew.

In the chest he was examining there was some more narcotics, as well as some pink dye, an egg, and two large, flawless diamonds.

"There's a couple of diamonds in here! Two diamonds!" cried Xephos in excitement. "Is that going to be enough for-"

"Get the diamonds! Get the diamonds!"

Honeydew ran over to another chest next to the one that Xephos was looting.

"Also there's some pink dye in here, do you think the Granny will be interested?"

"Damn it!" cursed Honeydew. "Where's the record!"

Xephos stowed the diamonds and the dye into his now substantially lighter satchel.

Down a few stories below, they could suddenly hear the high voice of Jasper talking to himself.

"But if the water's on my roof...then..."

Honeydew turned to the stairs where Jasper's voice was drifting up from.

"Uh oh." he said. "I think he's working it out."

"Uh, gods!" cried Xephos as he searched another chest quickly. "Where is the record, Honeydew? Did you check the jukebox?"

The Dwarf nodded as he walked towards a door at the opposite end of the room from where the landing of the stairs was. It appeared to go out to the gantry where the airship was moored.

"Maybe it's hidden somewhere?" asked Xephos, mainly to himself. "A secret door, or secret room? Is it downstairs?"

But Honeydew was paying no attention, he was having trouble outside opening some chests on the balcony.

"I can't open these chests." he complained.

Xephos suddenly had an epiphany.

"Is it on the airship?"

He ran over to the open doorway where Honeydew was standing, attempting to heave open the obviously locked chest.

"Honeydew?"

The dwarf gasped, perhaps in exhaustion or in realisation of the record perhaps being on the airship or maybe both.

"Might be!" he gasped, running speedily up to the boarding plank, and stepping onto the small airship.

Meanwhile, whilst Honeydew was searching the ship, Xephos unstrung the cover of his quiver, and drew an arrow. He inserted it into the lock of the chest that Honeydew had been struggling with, and after a moment's jiggling, there was a click and the chest clicked open.

Inside was a diamond, which Xephos hastily snatched up, a ball of lime-coloured wool, and a Grandma Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe package, probably containing a pork chop.

Xephos stowed all of this in his bag, hoping to be able to bribe Granny Bacon with any dyes or wool that he collected.

"I can't see any chests on the airship, Xephos." said Honeydew, popping his bearded face over the rim of the airship's railing. "Damn it!"

"Right," said Xephos, getting fed up with this. "I'm gonna start destroying stuff."

He ran to the window that looked out over the Fountains, where he saw Lysander, running backward out of Jasper's, his cutlass drawn.

Xephos drew his sword and put out the window in font of him with it's fish-tail pommel.

"Lysander!" he yelled. The Skylord looked up at him from below. "I can't find it!"

Behind him, Honeydew ran it the door, and headed for the stairs.

"I'm goin' down stairs!" he cried.

Minutes later, the entire scene had turned into chaos.

Lysander had yelled up to Xephos that Jasper had found him, and that they must hurry. He would distract them while they looked for the Record.

Lysander had run into the house, and seconds later emerged holding a pink, fluffy towel, and being chased by a very annoyed Jasper, wearing his Skylord uniform, that looked as though it had been put on rather hastily, and carrying in place of a sword, a mean-looking three ended whip.

"My best towel!" Jasper had whined. And: "Just look at my balcony!"

The balcony of course was still flooded with water, and unless the spring ran out, which it was showing no signs of doing, it would stay that way.

Honeydew had literally torn apart the second floor.

"It's not in the chests!" he yelled up to Xephos, who was going through the same dilemma upstairs. "It's not in the jacuzzi!"

He'd not imagined the mission going like this.

When they were heading down the waterfall, he'd envisioned them entering in super-stealth mode, entering, stealing the record, and exiting without Jasper even knowing, perhaps even rescuing a young maiden, whom Jasper had kidnapped for his own pleasures.

But Honeydew was fairly sure that the latter was not ever going to happen, especially after he examined the jacuzzi, and found what he first thought to be a pink rubber creeper, but to his horror realised what it really was after he'd picked it up. He should've known better, creepers were known throughout the world for when side-on resembling male genitalia.

"Have you checked the bed?" called Honeydew up to Xephos after throwing the "creeper" across the room.

"I'm doing it now!" came the answer.

Xephos had ripped the room to bits, but he had still not checked the bed. He ran over and ripped off the pillows, duvet, and as he was about to pull off the sheets, he slammed his hand down on the top left corner of the double bed. There was a thud.

Xephos, heart beating twice it's usual amount, tore the sheet off, and in the mattress, was a concealed chest.

It was placed as though the entire corner of the bed had been cut off, and a chest placed there instead. It was obvious that this was where Jasper must keep his most valuable possessions.

"Aha!" yelled Xephos in triumph. "I found it! I found it, I found it! It was hidden in the bed."

Honeydew had heard him, but was too busy looting to go up. While Xephos had thrown open the chest, and amongst other treasures, on top sat a black disk with a ring of gold around the small hole in the center.

"Aha! Golden Record!" called Xephos.

"Aaaarrrrrrrr!" cried Honeydew as he ran up the stairs. "Let's get out of here!"

"One moment!" said Xephos as he pulled out two golden pocket-watches, they looked valuable and my be useful.

"LYSANDERRRRRRRRRR!" roared Jasper as he chased Lysander about with his whip.

"Hey, Jasper, nice pink towels!" taunted Lysander.

"Okay," sighed Xephos. "I've got it! I've got it, I've got it, I've got it, I've got it!" He turned and ran over to Honeydew, who was heading to the roof.

"The way we came! The way we came!" the Dwarf yelled.

They ran up the stairs and into the Library.

"Quick! To the roof!" yelled Honeydew as he scampered up the bookshelf that was below the pane that he'd kicked in. But the broken pane was too high, dangerous, and not strong enough to get them out. So Honeydew kicked in another window, and snapped the iron that framed them, so they had a would-be doorway.

Honeydew stepped out, and began to climb quickly up the dome, Xephos following him through the hole.

"Are you going to fix that!" asked Xephos as they climbed back to the waterfall.

"No!" grunted Honeydew. "Balls to it!"

"Okay, let's just get out of here!" agreed Xephos as they reached the waterfall.

Honeydew, as per normal, ran at it without hesitation, and leapt into the stream followed by Xephos.

The current took them steadily down to the balcony, where the current slipped through a gap in the fence, and flowed down the City Wall, that had another line of fences running along it.

The two of them (now on the balcony) stepped side by side towards the water fall that would take them into the moat where they could swim to the shore.

But as they were about to leap into the water fall, they saw a creeper in the moat, and it had seen them.

It was waiting right net to the waterfall, lying in wait for the two of them to come within range.

Xephos and Honeydew were already half of the balcony when they saw the creeper, so there was no way for them to stop and find another route. Honeydew, who was on the right, straightened his back leg very quickly, causing him to jump over the waterfall, landing on the City Wall awkwardly, but safely.

Xephos, was not as lucky.

He too leapt for the Wall, but he did not put enough power into the jump, and the current took his feet, dragging him downward. He scrabbled to grab at the wall, but missed it as he was pulled by the water down towards the creeper. He would've been blown to pieces, but his shirt had caught on the fence. He was now stuck between two forces, the hungry tugging of the water, and the desperate cling of his shirt.

Xephos, who hadn't even managed to get a good breath before being pulled under tried to reach up and un-snag his shirt, but the pull of the water was too strong.

He realised that he was going to drown.

With the last of his strength, he pulled off his satchel and let the water take it, hopefully Honeydew and Lysander would find it and the record it contained.

Through the embrace of the water, Xephos could just hear the sound of Skylord Lysander, yelling something indecipherable.

Finally, Xephos could hold in his breath no more.

He gasped in water, it filled his lungs, but there was no air, so he kept breathing, sucking, in search of air. But there was none.

In his last moments he considered the irony of the situation, he'd survived the incident with the tree, and the creeper in the temple, but he now going to die in one of the most mundane ways possible. He could actually feel his spirit leaving his body this time, he managed to glance up and see the blurred face of Honeydew, only now realising the danger his friend was in, but when he did manage to free Xephos it was too late.

Xephos had died, and there were no doubts this time.


	7. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Reburglarize.

The sun was high in the sky as a figure emerged from the moat, carrying another in his large arms, the latter was limp as a rag doll, clearly dead. The tall figure with the ginger beard knelt and laid his dead friend on the grass at the top of the embankment and threw back his head letting out a yell that caused even the two battling Skylords in the City to freeze. And Xephos stared up at the bright blue sky with dull, dead eyes, gazing up towards the Aether, where, if the rumors where to be true, his spirit would now be approaching the gates of the Temple of Notch.

Honeydew gazed down at his friend, who'd endured so much, cheating death twice. But it now appeared the Reaper had come to take his toll. In death Xephos looked somewhat at peace, but Honeydew could not let it last, he needed to act quickly.

Xephos was dead this time, there was no doubting it. Honeydew had examined his vital signs as soon as he could.

It was only a few minutes ago on the wall when the dwarf had watched his friend drown before his eyes, he'd first thought that he was attempting to get away from the creeper at the bottom of the water fall by holding onto the wall, but soon after Honeydew had shot the creeper right between it's eyes and it had dropped dead, it became apparent that Xephos was about to do the same.

Honeydew had tried to haul his friend out of the current, but it was too strong. In Xephos's last seconds, he'd looked up and saw his friend trying to grasp at him, and then it was all that Honeydew could do from his perch on the wall to watch his friend slowly die in quick spasms of pain as he tried to break free, while the tears flowed down the dwarf's face.

Too late was it that Honeydew drew his sword to saw at the place where Xephos's shirt caught, when the link was cut, Xephos slowly sank into the deep blue water of the moat, and would have been washed away, were it not for Honeydew, who leapt of the wall into the moat and managed to drag the body of his friend to shore, even in his heavy gear.

Now Honeydew had Xephos's cadaver on the shore, his cold limbs splayed on either side of his body. The dwarf reminded himself he would have to act soon, but he could not tear his eyes from his friend. Slowly his hands crept towards the runestone around his own neck, pulling the loop of string that it was attached to over his head. The power of the stone was only rumored, it was presented to him by his mother the day she had died, but he would now have to test it. For this stone, a smooth oval with ancient dwarven runes engraved on it was said to give the ultimate gift. Life.

On her death bed, Honeydew's mother had told him of this power, and that it would need to be used quickly, for if the spirit of the deceased reached the Gates of Notch, for then nothing could bring them back, save the hand of the creator himself. Honeydew had begged to allow his mother to allow him to use it on her, but she told him that it was only to be used on someone who was departing before their time.

Honeydew knew this was that time to use it.

He pressed the stone to Xephos's breast with both hands, cold and unmoving as his eyes. Honeydew took a deep breath, thinking back to what his mother had told him minutes before she had died. Honeydew closed his eyes tight and bellowed as loud as his huge dwarven lungs could manage, he was yelling one of the oldest words known to the world, the dwarven word for life.

"THRALN!"

Bright blue light bled through his fingers where the stone was pressing against Xephos's chest. There was a mighty gust of wind all around the two of them, whipping the trees surrounding them. The sky turned dark as the sun hid behind a huge bank of clouds that covered the entire sky. And the azure light turned brighter.

Honeydew yelled the word again, screaming at the light, which all of a sudden brightened by the hundredfold, sending a huge pulse of blue light rippling in all directions. When it subsided, the sky was clear, and the stone beneath Honeydew's hands cracked. But something extraordinary was happening.

Xephos was breathing.

For a third time, he'd cheated death. It seemed that he had more lives than a cat, but less luck.

Once the sight had returned to his eyes, Honeydew took his hands off Xephos's chest, the runestone cracked in two, the markings still glowing faintly. Honeydew took them and placed them in one of his pockets, he wanted to keep them, it might now be useless, but it was the last gift from his mother, he'd keep them till the day he joined her.

Xephos suddenly sat bolt upright, only to be smothered by yet another hug by Honeydew.

"Haha! It worked!" he chortled.

Xephos looked confused as Honeydew released him, not fully comprehending what had just happened.

"Welcome back, friend!" beamed the dwarf, standing and offering Xephos his hand.

Xephos took it and was hoisted to his feet. He turned to Honeydew, who had a tear in his eye that he was hastily blinking away.

"What just happened?" asked Xephos, who suddenly bent double and vomited up a stream of water and sick.

Honeydew thumped him heavily on the back as he spat up the rest of the bile.

"You need to rest awhile, friend." reassured Honeydew. "It's not every day you get brought back from the dead."

Xephos, who was beginning to recover his memory, gave a sort of gurgling laugh.

"No," he smiled. "Every second one."

He and Honeydew shared a throaty laugh, the joke regarding Xephos's several close calls, and after a brief moment Xephos turned to his friend.

"So how did it happen this time?"

"Well..." sighed Honeydew. "Let me say that I have not been entirely truthful with you." He began to explain the event with the runestone, and where he'd gotten it from.

"So where did your mother find or obtains it?" asked Xephos. "An item of such power?"

"I could not say," replied Honeydew solemnly. "She passed before I could ask. But I think that it my have been an heirloom from my ancestors."

"Hmmm..." hummed Xephos absently.

"'Something wrong?" asked his friend.

"After the drowning." mumbled Xephos. "It's fairly hazy, but after a spell of long darkness, I felt like I was rising up, then... I think I can remember... seeing gates."

There was a long silence after this, broken, as such silences often are, by Honeydew.

"Oooh," he moaned. "You know what those where don't you?"

Xephos nodded, because he did. The Gate of Notch, shrouded in clouds glowing with sunlight. The entrance to his temple. Neither Honeydew nor Xephos were particularly religious, but they did pray to Notch if they felt the need. This was an almost moving experience for the both of them.

"I blacked out before a could get through the Gates." said Xephos, his heart heavy.

"Good thing too." nodded Honeydew. "If you'd gone through, you'd have been too far away to summon back." He pulled the broken runestone out of his pocket, the two halves each a dark semi-circle. Xephos stared at the little pieces of stone, now completely useless, but Xephos could no help but have some feeling of gratitude towards the stone.

"Honeydew," he asked. "I was wondering, perhaps I could, have one half of the stone, just as a...you know...memento?"

Honeydew smiled and tossed his friend half of the runestone, who caught it and went to put it in his satchel, which he now noticed was not at his side.

"Oh, I trust you have my bag?" asked Xephos, who now noticed that all of the rest of his gear had been swept away, including his sword and bow. "And the rest of my things?"

Honeydew looked abashed.

"Well...no. I was too busy saving your life."

Xephos groaned. The record, amongst other things important to their quest had been in there, and it was now presumably at the bottom of the moat along side the creeper's corpse.

"Dammit man!" cried Xephos as he staggered towards the moat, it's azure waters running along the city wall. "The record is somewhere down there!"

"Well..." breathed Honeydew in his usual wit. "We'll have to go find it then, wont we?"

Xephos nodded and pointed down the left side of where the water fall that had drowned him touched the water.

"I'll search this side, you do the left."

He started towards the water, but Honeydew called out.

"Xephos!" he cried as he pulled off his gear so that _he_ would not drown in the deep water.

His friend turned to him with a serious expression on his face.

"Don't go drownin' again!" grinned the dwarf.

Xephos smiled back.

"Wouldn't dream of giving you the satisfaction!"

On that word he ran to the water's edge, scanning with his sharp eyes along the shore towards the drawbridge, where the shore slowly angled up into a small embankment rather that the shingle that bridged the gap between the land and the water along the rest of the length of the moat. He could not see anything along the shore of the moat, and, begrudgingly, slowly waded into the water. There was an almighty splash to his left as Honeydew dived into the water twenty yards away to his left. Xephos grimaced as he too dived into the moat's depths, although the water was warm, it turned Xephos's heart to ice. He would never be the same with water again, just as he would never quite have the same efficiency he had with heights as he did before his two falls.

The moat was three and a half yards deeps, a good depth, if someone were trying to get into the city once the bridge was raised it was deep enough to drown anyone stupid enough to be wearing plate-mail, yet shallow and clear (It was, however not so clear at present, due to the waterfall kicking up sediment.) enough so that no-one could dive deep enough to escape the eyes of archers who at one time would undoubtably have lined Mistral's great walls, but the City was now desolate, and no-one would guard it for a long time.

Xephos used his hands to feel around the bottom of the moat, and after surfacing four times, his hands clasped around a length of leather. He surfaced holding his satchel, it was however empty. The clasps had become undone, and the contents of the bag were presumably strewn all over the bottom of the moat.

Xephos waited until Honeydew breached the water and yelled out towards him.

"I found the satchel!" he cried. "But it is empty!"

Honeydew shook his head, his great beard slick and wet.

"Well, keep looking!" gasped Xephos as he waded to the shore and dumped his satchel next to Honeydew's gear. He began to run along the shore of the moat, looking for anything that may have washed up on the shore.

After Honeydew surfaced a couple more times, Xephos called out to him again.

"So have you found my Record yet?"

"I'm looking." Honeydew breathed. "I'm looking in the water where you...died."

He finished the sentence talking in no more than a whisper, and Xephos turned and continued to walk down the left side of the moat, not wanting to say or think any more about his death.

As Xephos continued down the shore, he noticed two small objects washing up against the beach. He rushed forwards and noticed that the objects were merely a soggy pork chop, and a jar full of a brown lumpy fluid that appeared to be (probably off) mushroom stew, both of which he'd picked up in Jasper's house.

"Oh gods!" exclaimed Xephos. "There's a pork chop over here. And, eer..." He inspected the jar, confirming that it was what he believed it to be. "Mushroom stew. Has all of my stuff just been scattered?" he asked, but turning, he noticed that his tall friend had long since submerged. Xephos's thoughts suddenly went to Lysander, who he realised was probably still fighting off Jasper. He thought of going and fetching him to help them find the record, but that would get Jasper on their case, Jasper who, so far, had not seen them, and therefore would have no need to suspect the two heroes.

Honeydew suddenly erupted from the water holding a vast multitude of several of Xephos's miscellaneous items that he had been hoarding.

"I've found some of your goodies." Honeydew called, slurrging towards his gear pile and dumping the pile of junk there. Xephos continued to walk along the shoreline until he came to the South-Western corner of the moat at the corresponding corner of the City.

In the moat's corner there was a small golden gleam that caught Xephos's eye, and he rushed over, expecting to see the golden sheen of the record. But the spark was caused by a reasonably sized knife made from gold (also swiped from Jasper's) along with more of Xephos's self proclaimed "guff", which Xephos never the less picked up.

"There's a bit of stuff here!" announced Xephos, as he cradled his things in his arms.

Looking down the Western length of the City's wall, not too far from where he stood, the water pooled into a ten-yard by ten-yard basin that the water swirled around until it reached the center, which was at the bottom of the whirlpool that the swirling water formed.

"Oh gods!" Xephos gasped. "There's...there's a fucking whirlpool here!"

He turned and ran to Honeydew as he saw saying it, at the same time wondering how the moat stayed full of water when there was a whirlpool sucking it all underground. He came to the conclusion that the moat must be under a similar enchantment to Lysander's bucket.

Upon dumping the things that he was carrying in his pile, which was now catching up with Honeydew's, Xephos forced himself to look back up at the waterfall where he'd drowned.

It was slightly unnerving looking at it. The movement of the water now seemed sinister and evil, like an impossibly long snake sliding over the rim of the floating island far above, onto Jasper's roof, and into the moat. But there was one thing that Xephos was certain of.

So long as it was not death, if there were any other option, he would never leap into one of those waterfalls again.

But something caught his eye on the top of the fence atop the gate. hooked onto the fence, stuck between the forces of the fence and the water, much like their owner, were Xephos's quiver, minus many arrows, his bowcase, thankfully still with his bow, and his sword and scabbard.

"I can see some of my _goodies_ up there, actually!" sighed Xephos as Honeydew came out of the water, without the record.

Xephos started to wade into the water, towards the cursed waterfall. He was going to swim up it, he was determined of that, he would retrieve his gear no matter if the waterfall had killed him. But he still felt a twinge of trepidation as he walked further into the water.

Honeydew, who had not been paying pervious attention to Xephos's previous sentence, and in confusion he watched him swim slowly towards the water fall. It took him a while to spy the prize that Xephos was after, his weapons hooked on the top of the wall.

Honeydew let out a gasp of surprise and a chorus-like: "Aawww!" similar to the one he emitted when he saw the kittens for sale sign on the noticed board, save this was in a different pitch. His previous cry had been his: "Adoring Cry", high and shrill. Whereas this was his "Revering Cry", high, but sonorous, quavering like a bell the whole way. These two crys were often used to transfer his feeling on a situation as well as being his signature.

"Have you found the record?" asked Xephos turning back to Honeydew excitedly, who was now swimming hurriedly over to the waterfall, of which Xephos was now at the base of.

"No, no." sighed Honeydew when he reached his friend. "I can't see the record, but I can see your stuff just spazzing out where you died."

At that point, in the City Centre by the Fountains, Jasper had fallen back from his fight with Lysander, and was atop the Western Wall in front of his house staring down at the water, catching his breath. He'd managed to loose Lysander by having him chase him through Victoria Street where he'd darted back to his house and climbed the wall to be able to see when Lysander finally returned.

But something in the moat had caught his eye. A flash of gold. It was his Golden Record! It was surely his, there was no other in Mistral City, he was sure of it. How had his most prized possession gotten into the river? But at the moment he was more worried about _where_ in the moat it was. The black disk with a ring of gold around the the middle was slowly being dragged along the water surface towards the whirlpool that idiot Fumblemore had conjured up and been unable to reverse. The fool had then been forced to enchant the moat in a similar manner to those infernal buckets, the likes of which Lysander had used to get onto his roof. Idiotic Fumblemore. After Lysander had left, Jasper had tried getting rid of him, but the Wizard's hearing was gone...

All of these thoughts were rushing through Jasper's head as he scampered down the ladder that led up the wall, and over to a large-set door in the middle of the wall, it was meant for the rubbish-man, he'd lead his cart full of refuse from the City's bins towards the door and empty the trash into the whirlpool, where it was swept underground into presumably an underground cavern of subterranean river, not that the rubbish-man cared where the whirlpool took the rubbish. Jasper hated both those things. They wrecked his house's property value.

Jasper threw open the heavy door of oak after unlocking it with his Skylord's universal keys, and leant out over the slowly swirling water.

He could see the glint of his beloved record as it moved gradually closer to the center of the pool. Jasper, not wasting any time, wrapped one end of his whip around the only doorknob (on the inside) and held the other end as he jumped into the water.

His goggles, still clamped over his eyes, allowed for stunning clarity in the water as the water pulled him. Jasper didn't give a shit. He wanted that record.

He could see it gradually being pulled closer towards him, and in a matter of seconds, he closed his fingers around it's onyx body.

"AHAH! My Record!" he yelled triumphantly, but swearing he could hear other voices somewhere nearby...somehow familiar.

But Jasper was suddenly jolted back into reality as he noticed that he was mere feet from the opening in the floor of the moat that was sucking the water down. Made somewhat pliable by the water, Jasper shoved the record halfway down the front of his trousers, and began to pull himself back towards the popularly known "Shit Hatch".

Jasper reached to foot of the doorway and pulled himself up onto the cobblestone floor of the City, sopping wet but with his record in hand.

But something was not right, how had his record gotten in the water? He thought this as he ran into his house, and the answer soon became apparent.

His house had been completely ransacked, only on the bottom floor his chests and draws had been tipped over and broken, his very costly rug, had made for him by the finest weavers in the City of Icaria, had been ripped and moved across the floor as if someone were looking for something underneath it...

Jasper's drug addled brain finally put the dots together; someone was or had been in his house, and they were looking for something. Lysander had been the one who came down onto his roof, but what were the chances that he was not alone, or a distraction? He thought of it before, but that made no sense. That pompous fool had no friends, at least not until recently it seemed...

That man and the strangely tall dwarf! They must have been in the house while Lysander was distracting him.

Jasper ran up the stairs record and whip in hand, ready to strike out at the two infiltrators when he got sight of them.

Xephos had retired to the shore as Honeydew made another attempt to swim up the waterfall. Out of the two of them, he'd been the most successful, having already retrieved Xephos's sword, which Xephos now wore around his waist once again.

He watched Honeydew try to once again achieve more height, enough to get the rest of Xephos's gear. It was a tricky business, swimming up the waterfall, it was a rather thin tube, and propulsion was mostly done by kicking, something Xephos had not been able to do rather well, he'd hardly been able to get his abdomen above the moat's water level.

Honeydew gave another kick of his mighty legs and reached out, grabbing the top of the wall and pulling himself onto the top of the fence that ran around the top. He gasped for breath as he rested his back against the window of Jasper's second floor.

Xephos was congratulating him when they heard another voice calling out.

"AHAH! My record!" screamed the distinct voice of Jasper.

Xephos looked up at Honeydew, who was unhooking his gear from the fence.

"Oh crap." said Xephos. "I think Jasper's got the record back." He groaned in frustration.

"We're so terrible!" cried Honeydew as he threw Xephos's things down to him in the water.

"Our escape route was awful, I got wedged on a fence and drowned."

As Xephos ferried his gear to the shore where he could equip it more easily, they could both hear the voice of Lysander yelling out on the inside of the City.

"He has the Record!" he yelled.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" screamed Honeydew.

Lysander, who'd been following the sound of their voices climbed the wall to see Honeydew sitting on it a few paces away from him, back against Jasper's house.

"What are you doing!" he yelled, loud enough for Xephos to hear on the shore.

Honeydew, startled turned to see Lysander standing on the battlements looking thunderous.

"Er..." said Xephos on the shore, Lysander turned to look down at him too.

"I cleared the front door for you!"

"Were just, nothing!" replied Xephos, fully aware of how the situation must have seemed.

Honeydew could see something moving through the window behind him, and despite Lysander's glare, he turned to see Jasper hobbling up the steps to the second floor. Still under the illusion that Jasper did not know of their presence, and hoping to keep it that way, Honeydew hastily leapt off the wall and into the moat, leaving Lysander furious.

He waded to the shore where Xephos was ready to head back into the City, he had all of his gear on him, and though he was saturated, he looked ready for adventure.

"So does he have the Record?" asked Honeydew in exasperation, referring to Jasper, as he began putting on his gear too.

"Yeah." sighed Xephos as he waited for his friend.

Honeydew sighed.

"Should we just kill 'im?"

"Ah... Gods." sighed Xephos.

Honeydew, now with the majority of his gear on, and a whole lot of items that he had decided were trivial had been dumped to his side to stop them from encumbering him. But at this moment, Honeydew pulled out of his satchel something that he'd been treasuring and fearing to use. The diamond plated greaves that Daisy had smithed for them long ago. These and the chest plate Xephos had worn were intended to be worn in a single suit, but they had split the gear before going after Israphel. Honeydew got the leggings because he preferred going bare-chested.

He quickly strapped on the fine greaves to his legs, and got up with them clinking slightly from mal-usage.

Xephos grinned at his friend as he got to his feet. They were made with equal or more talent than Xephos's chestplate, and he knew how Honeydew had felt about the Blacksmith of Terrorvale.

"Let's go." said Honeydew as he took off at a run towards the drawbridge at the City Entrance.

As they ran closer, the bank of the moat grew steeper so that it would now be near impossible for one to climb out if they fell in. Towards where the drawbridge met the soil on side opposite the City, there was a niche in the bank, and as Honeydew ran closer, Xephos thought he could see something moving in the bank.

"Look out Honeydew! There's a creeper!"

Honeydew stopped at the niche and looked down. Xephos expected to hear the creeper hiss and explode, sending his friend in all directions, but he merely looked up with a confused expression on his face.

"That's a cow."

Xephos ran closer and saw a black and white cow struggling in the water, probably the same cow that Honeydew had scared of the sports field days ago.

Xephos groaned at his paranoia. He was going to start seeing creepers everywhere.

Honeydew laughed huskily.

"I'm loosing my mind." growled Xephos as he followed Honeydew back into the City.

As they crossed the City threshold into Mistral, they could hear the fight going on in the City Center.

"Lysander, watch out!" warned the low voice of Father Braeburn. "Jasper calm yourself!"

They quickened their pace and ran it the burst into the Center to see a scene of utter chaos.

Jasper was chasing Lysander with his whip lashing at the blue Skylord's heels, who was still carrying Jasper's towel. Father Braeburn was running about screaming for them to stop, holding the golden apple in one hand.

"Soo..." said Honeydew. "What's going on? Does Lysander have the record?"

"No, Jasper has the Record." replied Xephos as they edged closer to the fight.

Lysander and Jasper where now on alternate ends of the large "In Memorium" fountain, Lysander running in the opposite direction of Jasper when ever he moved.

"Oh dear." sighed Braeburn.

Jasper, who suddenly sighted the heroes, ran at them, standing in the middle of the three fountains, brandishing his whip.

Honeydew ran forwards with the pickaxe and struck the side of the "In Memorium" fountain, causing a stream of water to leak out from the side onto the smooth floor.

Honeydew quickly backed off as Jasper's whip snapped inches away from his face, but Jasper continued to run at them, failing to notice the large puddle pooling of the smooth floor. The second he set foot on it he slipped and landed on his chest, groaning in the pool as the cool water trickled out of the fountain onto his back.

"I think Jasper is a bit mad." commented Xephos, taking several steps backwards towards Jasper's house, which was visibly a mess even from the outside. "But he looks a bit distracted, so maybe we could sneak back inside..."

He and Honeydew began to sneak around the fountain of strength, when it appeared that Jasper came-to.

"AHHH! Cold water!" he yelped, leaping to his feet and, running around the side of the "In Memorium" fountain after Lysander, wailing like a banshee.

"I'd better leave the apple in the Church..." announced Braeburn as he beat a hasty retreat into the Church.

Lysander ran past Xephos and Honeydew, nodding at Jasper's house, as Jasper himself came careening after him in a fit of rage. Lysander was proceeding to kite him around the City.

"Has Lysander got Jasper's towel?" asked Xephos as he and Honeydew watched the two run around the City. "Is that what is going on? and he's chasing him?"

The two watched in silence for a while before Xephos sighed.

"Let's go back in and re-rob the house."

"Re-rob." said Honeydew as the turned and ran towards the house, mulling the phrase over in his mind. "I think you'll find the proper term is to, urrm... "Reburgalarise."

The two entered the house and proceeded to start going through every chest on the bottom floor once again. When they saw that there was nothing in the chests, save what they saw before, they headed to the second floor.

Xephos led the way up the stairs to find their way once again blocked by the iron door, but this mattered not, for it was no longer a stealth mission, and it did not take long for Xephos to break down the low wall draped with towels.

Entering the room, dominated by the enormous bath tub set into the floor that took up half the room. The two went to work rummaging through the chests, Xephos only stopping to gather up several multi coloured towels that they may be able to use in trade with Granny Bacon.

"There's just towels! And mushroom stew..." said Xephos in distaste as he looked at yet another bowl of off stew sitting on the edge of the bath, which he knocked into the tub without a second glance.

"Dammit!" cried Honeydew as the two of them headed upstairs to the level where they found the Record in the first place.

"Do you reckon he might have put it up here a gain?" asked Xephos as he came onto the third floor landing.

Xephos made a beeline for the chest hidden in Jasper's bed. he threw open the lid and there the record lay, it's gold and black face staring up at him.

"Oh, gods! He has, he's put it in the chest again!" Xephos pulled out the record and as an afterthought, picked up another gold pocket-watch.

Xephos turned to see Honeydew emerging from the stairs.

"I've got it! I've got it! I've got it!" chattered Xephos quickly, he placed the record on the bed with his bandaged hands. Honeydew walked towards him. "Can you hold onto it, seeing as you are actually able to defend yourself because you've got armor, and you've got-"

"I like to leave a calling card." announced Honeydew, pushing past Xephos towards the bed, not noticing the record at all, and pulling out a piece of paper, probably ripped from a book, and a stumpy little pencil.

"Oh gods! Your gonna leave him a note?" asked Xephos, laughing. "That's just perfect!"

"I mean some people leave, like... a rose." stated Honeydew pressing on the lid of the chest as he scrawled out a note. He finished a second later, and it read:

_Thanks for_

_the Record_

_fuckface!_

The two of them both began to laugh in a fit-like manner.

"Amazing!" laughed Xephos, when suddenly he heard something coming from the bottom floor. Jasper.

"Alright let's get the fuck out of here!" yelled Xephos, heading towards the balcony door. Downstairs, they could hear Jasper's footfalls getting louder.

"Give me the Record!" yelled Honeydew loudly. The footsteps got faster as Jasper reached the second floor. "Give me the record!"

"I did! It's behind you!" screamed Xephos. Honeydew turned and for the first time saw the record and stowed it in his satchel.

"He's coming! He's coming!" cried Xephos as they could hear Jasper start on the stairs to their floor.

"Oh gods! Oh gods!" screamed Honeydew in a moment of piousness.

"Let's get out! Get out!" Yelled Xephos as he threw open the door to the balcony where the Airship was moored. "Balcony! Balcony! Balcony!"

They did not dare look back as they made their way across the glass-bottomed balcony and to the boarding plank of the air ship. Standing on alternate sides of the plank, staring down at the whirlpool far below. There were some calm patches just at the edge of the pool, and that was where they were aiming.

"Oh yeah, cause this went so well las time!" cursed Honeydew.

And as though by some unspoken command, just as Jasper stuck his head over the railing of the stairway and out the window just after Xephos and Honeydew leapt out over the gurgling funnel of water.

"Woooh!" shrieked Honeydew as they fell through the air and splashed down in the calm patches on the fringes of the whirlpool. The two surfaces gasping for breath and swam quickly to the shore on opposite sides of the funnel. Just as Xephos reached land Lysander's deep sand sonorous voice echoed out an uncharacteristic remake.

"Jasper, you're a fag!"

Xephos could not help but smile at this, and looked across the pool to see his friend sitting on the area of the shore where they had piled up all of their gear. He started around the whirlpool towards his friend who was now lying down.

As he approached, he could hear Jasper letting out an almighty cry of anguish. Xephos grimaced. He had no doubt that Jasper would sometime try to have his revenge. They would have to be careful.

"Still got the record?" asked Xephos as he got to his friend. Honeydew nodded and pulled it out of his satchel.

"I also found this in the calm bit of the whirlpool."

He pulled out the pocket watch that Xephos had initially stolen. It's disk showed that is was the afternoon, [The watches and clocks in this world consisted of disks that were separated in half, one coloured-in blue with a yellow sun motif, and the other half black with a white moon, in a case had a small window that the disk rotated around so that depending on the time of day it would be shown through the window.] and Xephos received it eagerly.

"Actually, I've got a clock for_ you_ pal." said Xephos, pulling out the matching gold pocket watch and exchanging it for the one his friend had. It must have been extremely good quality, because even though it had been sitting in the water for an hour, it still worked.

"I wonder if we can bribe Granny with some of this wool," said Xephos as he looked at the small towels that he had in his bag along with some dyes. "'Cause we've got allot of cloth and dyes. She might like all of that for, knitting or stuff? What do you think? could we get our second Golden Apple off of her?"

Honeydew sat up and got to his feet and walked towards the drawbridge, with Xephos following. They were, however, unaware of an angry figure glowering down at them from the third floor of Jasper's house. Jasper turned suddenly and hurried stealthily down the stairs of his home.

"Well, we've got enough-well, we've got seven diamonds, was that how much she asked for?"

"Have you?" asked Xephos asked Xephos halfway through Honeydew's sentence.

"You're out there again!" shouted Lysander from the Gates of Mistral as they neared the drawbridge.

"I think it was!" said Honeydew excitedly, ignoring Lysander.

"How did you get seven diamond?" asked Xephos as the two of them passed the angry Skylord.

"Umm..." said Honeydew, coming to a standstill, looking abashed. "From Jasper's chests."

"Oh gods! Really? You sneaky bastard."

Honeydew giggled and held his finger to his lips, making furious "shh-ing" noises. The three rounded the corner at the Fountains, Honeydew (inevitably) leading the way to Granny Bacons, with Xephos following, glad that this quest was nearly over, and also somewhat foreboding what might go on in the Tea Shoppe when they arrived. Honeydew and granny hadn't seen each other in, what? Twelve hours? And Lysander was following, looking tired, annoyed, but also relieved.

"Let's go see Granny Bacon." remarked Honeydew as they entered the side street that Granny Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe was down.

"Well..." mumbled Lysander. "I'm going to go and check on Peculier. You two can handle yourselves?"

"Yes!" said Honeydew as he entered the Shoppe, Xephos close behind, and Lysander passing completely by.

They walked up to the counter where Granny Bacon was seated in her usual position, her face alight, as though seeing Honeydew made her day a whole lot brighter, which it would have, considering the situation of the City.

"Greetings, my Lovely!" sang Honeydew as he leaned against the stone counter. Xephos standing to his left, leaning against the left wall.

Suddenly, Granny's face turned to one of sheer horror, she stared wildly at the back of her store.

"Look out behind you!" she trilled, pointing at something behind them.

Skulking around at the back of the shop next to the door was Jasper, his goggle for the first time since they had seen him not covering his eyes, which Xephos could now see were a sort of deep brownish-red, and it appeared that he had been right about the eye liner, for it now seemed as though it had seared all over his face due to the water.

"Oh gods, Jasper's here." warned Xephos.

"Uh oh!" yelled Honeydew.

Jasper leered at them, but began to creep towards the door. He was pushing his way out when Honeydew pulled out his crossbow and quickly fired a bolt at him. Jasper saw this coming, and quickly shut the door. The bolt smashed through the window and into the opposite building, narrowly missing Lysander, who'd been attracted back to the Tea Shoppe without checking on Peculier, and was roughly ushering Jasper away from the premises.

"Ahh!" cried out Lysander in shock, releasing his grip of Jasper's vest, who took off like a charging bull away from the Shoppe.

Honeydew winced as the glass tinkled onto the floor.

"I'll pay for that." he smiled sheepishly.

"Too right, you will!" huffed Granny Bacon accusingly as Lysander entered the room. She then shook her head. "That no good Jasper."

"I think we've gotten away with it." said Xephos, with a fair optimism that could only be dismissal. "He doesn't suspect anything! There's no evidence. You didn't leave any evidence behind, did you?"

"I may have left some "evidence" in the Jaccussi." sneered Honeydew.

Xephos eyed him with the same expression of disgust as Lysander, Granny however, seemed not to mind.

"Now," sighed Granny. "How can I help you, dears?"

"Honeydew." whispered Xephos. "Can I have the Record for the Father?"

Honeydew just waved him away and spoke to Granny (once again, in the Posh Voice)

"Old Woman," he began. "I would like to purchase your finest apple." at this point he held in his hand a small velvet bag, the top was strung tight, not showing it's glittering contents. "A Golden one."

Granny was staring with hungry little eyes at the bag, they could almost see the pin-pricks of light reflecting off the diamonds within in her eyes.

While she was distracted, Honeydew turned to Xephos, hand in his satchel.

"Record, okay...Hang on!" He pulled the disk out of his bag and handed it to his friend.

"Come, Xephos," said Lysander. "Before Jasper notices."

"Okay, let's get this handed in, and given safely to...to the Father."

Lysander and Xephos were walking quickly towards the door when Xephos turned to his Dwarf-friend.

"Oh, and Honeydew?"

Honeydew turned around and looked at his friend, Granny had gone out the back, no doubt searching for the most valuable item in the store.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"No distractions."

Xephos shut the door as both he and Honeydew shared a smile of laughter.

"Right!" said Xephos as he and Skylord Lysander set off in different directions towards Braeburn's Church.

Honeydew waited for a few many minutes as Granny rummaged around the back of the store, he was contemplating on wether or not to go and see what was keeping her, when she came through the door carrying a small case of dark mahogany with golden hinges.

They exchanged no words as she laid the case on the countertop. Honeydew was still holding the pouch when Granny slid the case towards him.

She smiled, but Honeydew kept his hard, bargaining expression.

"Something to sink your teeth into... Have you got the..."

Honeydew undid the top of the bag and let the diamonds, each as big as a small bird's egg, be upended onto the counter, each rattling and spinning in a little dance, the light reflecting making them look like little stars on the table.

"Oh! very nice!" quavered Granny clapping excitedly as the diamonds settled.

"Now for your end of the deal." said Honeydew evenly.

Granny calmed herself and reached under the counter pulling out a tiny golden key. Time seemed to be moving extraordinarily slowly as Granny moved the key towards the lock on the front of the box, which may have been because Granny Bacon could at times be a bit melodramatic.

Honeydew could not help himself as his eyes widened in anticipation as Granny inserted the key into the lock and turned.

There was a small click as Granny pulled the lid slowly open. Sitting on a bed of velvet in the box was a perfectly round apple, it's skin ablaze with the colour gold, shinning orange in the light, like a preserved sunburst. The stem at the top was of what appeared to be bronze, and from that stem a single, silver leaf, so fragile that it looked as though a single breath would snap it from it's home.

The sun was setting and the sky above Mistral was ablaze with orange as Xephos raced across the city centre to the door of Braeburn's Church. He looked to his left and could see Lysander rounding the corner of Victoria Street and running towards him. Xephos nodded at him as he approached and with the soon-to-be Holy Record in hand he pushed open the door to The Church.

Father Braeburn was standing in front of the lectern, leaning against it sleepily, seeming as though he'd been waiting for them.

"Hello, friend." yawned Braeburn, immediately bringing to mind for Xephos that he had not slept for days, save dying, but once again, that did not count.

"Here!" yawned Xephos back, tossing the black disk towards the father, who caught it surprisingly well. "Check this out!"

"Oh!" yelled Father Braeburn. "Excellent!" he hummed in satisfaction, then looked up. "I wont ask too many questions about where you got it from."

"Can I have the apple now?" asked Xephos pressingly.

"Let me get you the apple." smiled Braeburn, he ran around the back of the lectern and opened the chest with a creak.

Xephos and Skylord Lysander, who'd entered while Braeburn was going through the chest, waited impatiently for him. Braeburn finally as if, like Granny Bacon, enjoying the suspense, came back around the lectern, Golden Apple in hand.

It shone even more brilliantly than it's sister that Honeydew was retrieving, which may have been due to the fact that it had been constantly dusted and shined.

"Oh gods..." drooled Xephos. "Give it to me!"

Braeburn smiled jovially and tossed Xephos the apple, who caught in one hand, and stared at it, his face reflecting in the convex surface.

"Here! Take it and enjoy!" smiled The Father.

"Hooray!" cried Xephos in somewhat mock satisfaction.

"We should go, Xephos." said Lysander, his voice somewhat less heavy than usual.

Xephos followed Lysander out of the door of the Church, just as Braeburn muttered, partially to himself and partially to Xephos and the Skylord.

"Now to redecorate this place!"

"Thank you, Father!" called Xephos as the door shut.

Honeydew was standing outside of Granny Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe in the lamp-light, shinning his apple against the leather in a space between the straps that secured his leg-plates. When he was inside the shoppe he had picked up the apple trying to be as delicate as possible, but because of him enormous hands, he'd accidentally dropped it off the counter onto the floor. It seemed to have no visible damage, and Honeydew had dusted it off ad left the shoppe, waiting outside where he hoped that Xephos and Lysander would meet him.

He only had to wait a few more seconds when Xephos called out to him from down the street where it opened out to the fountains.

Honeydew welcomed him and Lysander as they both joined him.

"Do you have your apple?" asked Honeydew, holding his, now shinning more brightly due to him rubbing it against his leg.

"Yup!" smiled Xephos, holding his up, then letting it roll down his arm into it's crook under his elbow. He then straightened his arm out quickly, launching his apple into the air before catching it with the same arm.

"How were your negotiations?" asked Lysander.

"Seven diamonds." replied Honeydew, switching into his posh voice again. "That's about one for every decade she's been alive."

The two laughed, even Lysander grinned.

"At least!" gasped Xephos.

Honeydew smiled, and was thankful for the wall that separated Granny's ears from their voices. "It rolled onto the floor," he admitted. "But I think it's fine, I just dusted it off."

"Now we can save Old Peculier!" yelled Xephos, opening his satchel and going through an inventory check, just to make sure that they had everything.

"Alright, I've got five Creeper Powder," he said, using the slang term for the material.

"Lysander gave me the bucket of water." said Honeydew.

"A couple of feathers incase the bots were no good."

"The Apples,"

"Have you got dirt?" asked Xephos, bringing out a handful of soil. "I've got one dirt. I don't really like the fact that dirt is going into this potion." mumbled Xephos. Honeydew did not respond.

Xephos took this as a no, and ran up towards the Ridge, where he was sure there was dirt.

Xephos ran along the path until it turned left and ran next to the two houses, one of which being Lysander's Elysium, he knelt in the dirt that the path snaked between and ripped up the grass and began to grab handfuls of dirt.

Honeydew opened up the door to Granny Bacon's to thank her again, she merely smiled and said:

"Drop by any time you want to sample my fruit, dear."

Honeydew thanked again her and shut the door.

"What kind of fruit?" said Honeydew, glancing side-long at Lysander. "Her plump, ripe and juicy melons, firm to the touch."

Lysander shook his head and pushed past the tall Dwarf and slowly walked towards where Xephos was digging his hole.

It was around then, when Xephos was retrieving the last necessary handful of dirt when he went to grab at the soil, but as his fingers dug into the dirt, it fell away as if there was nothing but void there.

Xephos looked down and saw that he'd dug through the roof of what appeared to be a cave. He looked through the tiny hole and saw a dark cavern of dirt and wooden supports that seemed to be the only thing that was stopping the grass that Xephos was standing on from giving way and causing all of the buildings and himself from falling down. He came to the deduction that the Ridge had been built and was not a land form, but he still reckoned that Lysander would not be amused that he was digging holes in Ridge.

"Okay, maybe I shouldn't be digging holes in the City." Xephos murmured.

"Hello!" said Honeydew cheerily from behind him.

Xephos looked up suddenly to see Honeydew looking mischievous, and Lysander looking somewhat between puzzled and furious.

"Ahhhmmm..."said Xephos, hurriedly grabbing the pile of dirt that he'd made next to him and shoved it over the hole, covering it up with the clod of grass that he'd ripped out.

"What was that?" asked Lysander testily as Xephos stood up and stamped on the grass clod, knocking it in place so that the hole was now invisible.

"Nothing!" he responded, running after Honeydew who had ran off towards the Sky Tower.

"So yeah," Xephos panted as he caught up with his friend. "How much dirt do you have?"

"Loads, plenty, we're good." replied Honeydew as he and Xephos passed the Elysium.

"Okay, we're good for dirt." said Xephos as Lysander ran up behind him.

"I think we've got everything." said Honeydew as they approached the foot of the massive stone tower.

"Yeah, I've got the sulphur." stated Xephos, who'd looted the substance from Jasper's house.

"Let's go and find our Wizard-man." said Honeydew as he pushed open the door and led the way up the winding stairs of the Sky Tower. "Fumblemore."

Once they reached the roof of the Sky Tower, Xephos looked out over the edge whilst he and Honeydew waited for Lysander, who'd fallen, behind to catch-up.

Xephos looked incredulously at the Temple that was now missing it's bottom half. He wondered how the damned thing was till floating, or how it had been floating in the first place.

Lysander appeared through the hole where the stairs led out of and told them that they should hurry towards Fumblemore's Tower.

Honeydew led them up the first set of along the walkway until he came to the intersection. He cast about in dismay.

"How the hell do we get over there?" he asked during a sudden lapse of memory.

"This way." said Xephos, pointing along the path that went west. "We "built" a little bridge remember?"

"Oh yeah..." sighed Honeydew as he ran along the walkway, and onto the island where they felled the tree. "Oh yeah, there it is!" he repeated in a slightly higher voice.

"Shazzam!" yelled the nasal underbite voice of the Wizard.

A loud explosion racked through Mistral once more as Fumblemore cast the spell. Lysander yelled, Honeydew squealed, and Xephos swore.

"Ooohh, shit!" yelled Xephos as the blast subsided. "Aw, fucking hell."

He looked up and saw Honeydew heading down towards the felled tree. Lysander groaned as he and Xephos began to walk towards the tree too.

"SHIT!" yelled Fumblemore from somewhere in his tower.

"Thank you Fumblemore." sighed Xephos as he followed Honeydew over the tree, trying not to look down or think about their being here on previous circumstances. But he could not help but stop for even a moment when he came to the rope at the mid-way point.

Lysander reassured him and Xephos followed after Honeydew, snapping branches in his way as he went.

"You maniac!" called Honeydew up the tower as they reach the foot of it. "As long as he doesn't blow himself up before we can get to him."

"It isn't really the words of a wizard yelling "shit", is it?" said Xephos as they walked through the door of the tower.

"He yelled bugger before." stated Honeydew as he started up the stairs.

"Which way are you going? Are you going to his office or his bathroom?" asked Xephos as he got to the crossroad, Honeydew taking the path going to the right.

"I'm going to his bathroom." answered Honeydew as he got to the door of the right walkway. "I just thought I'd "make use of the facilities"."

"I think he'd be in his office," said Xephos, looking up at the ceiling as Honeydew opened the door. "Up at the top."

"Oh gods, that's where the water comes out of, Xephos!" cried Honeydew, referring to the bathroom.

"Yeah," laughed Xephos, bewildered at how long it had taken for his friend to connect the dots.

"Oohh!" squirmed Honeydew as he ran out onto the outside of the walkway.

"Into the Opium Den." called Xephos after his friend, who then disappeared, and Xephos thought it prudent if he should follow suit. He led the way along the straight path, followed by Lysander to the door. He opened it and immediately noticed the sizable difference in the wind than the last time they had ascended the walkways outside the tower. It was not a strong wind, one you would hardly notice if you were on solid ground, but up on the narrow walkways it was enough to unbalance someone who was not paying enough attention. Xephos and Lysander started forward, doubled over against the wind which was plucking against their clothes, beckoning them to topple into the sky.

Xephos was being extremely cautious, focusing on looking at the walkway, but determined not to cast a glance over the edge, it would be a long time before he would be able to handle heights like he used to.

The sky was becoming overcast and the wind stronger as the two neared the end of the walkway, but the ascent had taken them so long on Xephos's behalf that Honeydew was done "making use of the facilities" and was back on the cross-roads at the bottom of the tower, now following the straight path towards Fumblemore's office. Xephos was following the path so single mindedly that he did not notice it end, but even so, it did not end when he expected, for instead of being at the door to Fumblemore's office he crouched petrified over a great yawning gap in the walkway, sharp splinters like jagged teeth, blackened by the explosion showing where the blast of the spell had ripped apart the walkway.

"Oh...shit." swore Xephos.

"Oh dear oh dear..." tutted the distinct voice of Fumblemore.

Xephos managed to tear away his eyes from the great expanse of sky that had mesmerised him, to see the old wizard standing (quite embarrassingly) with ease on the other side of the gap in the walkway.

"You old fool!" yelled Xephos angrily, as Lysander rolled his eyes and Honeydew came up behind them.

"What's he done?" asked Honeydew.

"He's blown a hole, in a very _precarious_ part of the world." Xephos said testily. He'd recovered his nerves and was no longer as nervous over the hight, but only because he was directing his fury at Fumblemore.

"Could you repair my walkway, please?" asked Fumblemore, in an annoyingly casual tone, as though this happened every other day. Which, it occurred to Xephos, it may.

"Well, how are we supposed to do that?" yelled Xephos incredulously.

"Here we go..." groaned Lysander.

"What?" answered Fumblemore. "No, I'm afraid I do not own any cats."

Xephos slammed his palm against his forehead.

"Well how are we going to do this?" Honeydew asked.

"We do not have anything to build it with." noted Lysander.

"Well," ventured Xephos, reaching into his satchel, that had once again grown in size since the raid of Jasper's house. "I do have these." he said with disgust.

Xephos pulled out three of Jasper's flamboyantly coloured towels that he originally intended to used to barter with Granny Bacon with.

"You're using Jasper's towels?" laughed Honeydew, lowering himself on the railless walkway.

"Your right." droned Xephos, flinging his arm out over the edge of the abyss to drop the towels, but he was stopped by Lysander.

"Wait, stop!" he cried. "We may be able to use these." Lysander grabbed the towels and brandished them.

"How would we do that?" asked Xephos, annoyed.

"FUMBLEMORE!" hollered Lysander at the old Wizard, who'd been looking at the with an odd expression, he looked over at Lysander.

"ALL WE HAVE ARE THESE!" continued Lysander. "COULD YOU MAKE DO FOR NOW?"

"Sorry, don't own a cow either!" answered Fumblemore. "But would you mind lending me those fabrics, I need to fix my walkway."

They all nodded vigorously at the senile old Wizard, hoping that even that would not become lost in translation.

Fumblemore pulled out his wand and pointed it at the towels hanging from Xephos's outstretched arm. He let loose a string of magic words and farts as both towels and wand were surrounded by a corona of blue light. Fumblemore had to concentrate very hard as he levitated each of the three towels over the five-yard gap, there he used his magic once more and flattened out each of the towels until they were hovering over the gap in the walkway, barely touching each other and the opposite ends of the walkway, yet even as the aura of magic around them faded, the towels stayed taut and steady, supported by magic not too different to that which was used on the walkway.

"There we are?" said Xephos in anxiety, looking at the bridge of towels, wondering how much weight it could support. But Fumblemore _had_ managed to actually make the bridge, maybe he was more competent than they gave him credit for.

"Excellent!" grinned Fumblemore.

"It looks even less safe than it did before!" cried Honeydew.

"But what other choice do we have?" asked Lysander.

This was a point, if they wanted to save Peculier, they would have to follow after Fumblemore, who'd just turned around and was starting to walk towards the door to his office, just as the rain stared to come down.

"Nothing else for it then." said Xephos, taking a bold step onto the new walkway. The tested his footing, then stepped forwards, the towels made a surprisingly efficient bridge, although it did sag slightly, it held it's shape.

"I put down some carpet!" said Xephos hysterically as he quickly ran to the end of the toweled section, glad to be back on solid land.

Fumblemore was just shutting the door as they had all made it to the other side of the towel bridge, and the rain was beginning to come down even heavier.

"Can we go inside, please?" whined Honeydew, who was beginning to shiver.

"Yeah, can we go inside," echoed Xephos following the walkway to Fumblemore's door. "I'm feeling a little bit, err" he glanced over the edge. "Scared." he mumbled.

He pushed open the door to Fumblemore's study and he Lysander and Honeydew tumbled into the dry and (for the most part) calm.

Fumblemore was standing across the room from them behind the table.

"Oh!" breathed Xephos. "Feel much safer in here."

He moved to the side of the tower where the main entrance was two floors down, looking across at Fumblemore. Honeydew mumbled something rude about a crazy old bugger as the shut the door.

"Now who are you?" asked Fumblemore quite innocently.

"Alright Fumblemore." Xephos breathed deeply. "OKAY WIZARD!" he yelled at Fumblemore. "WE BROUGHT THE STUFF!"

"WE HAVE THE SHIT FOR THE POTION!" roared Honeydew to assist his friend.

Fumble more showed that he could hear them, but he seemed to not recognise what they were saying. Perhaps Xephos had been wrong about him being competent.

"WE'RE GONNA GIVE YOU THE STUFF!" continued Xephos, hoping that the ingredients may jog his memory.

He and Honeydew began to place all of the ingredients for the potion on the table, as Lysander stared at the rain streaking down the small window he was looking out of. Honeydew wished he was in bed, the sound of rain on the roof always made him feel more cosy.

Finally he and Xephos placed the coveted Golden Apples side by side on the table, next to the pile of a bucket, dirt, sulphur, and spare feathers.

"Oh right!" said Fumblemore in realisation. "The potion for your mother!"

Xephos sighed, but did not speak up, the Wizard was going to make the potion, there was no need to complicate it further.

"Well thank goodness for that!" huffed Honeydew. "This has been an epic quest. Although I think I would have preferred to collect ten bear arses, or something like that."

"Perfect!" exclaimed Fumblemore, after examining all of the ingredients, to make sure it was all there. "Let me just put it all together."

The Wizard picked up the bucket walked to one side of the room, where he pulled a book from the shelf and placed it along with the bucket on a strange looking pedestal where the book levitated in mid-air, tilting towards Fumblemore and flipping open to apparently random pages, where the words would quite literally fly off of the pages, only to fade away and reappear.

"Should we get out of the way?" asked Xephos, who, along with Lysander and Honeydew were backing into the corners of the opposite side of the room to Fumblemore. "Because his potions tend to be rather "explosive"."

"I suggest we back off." warned Lysander, no mistaking the fear in his voice, the others squashed themselves into different places as Fumblemore rushed about, adding ingredients to the potion.

"Don't want to go outside, though." commented Honeydew, which was true, it would take only a slight tremor to knock someone over the edge of the walkway.

Honeydew backed himself into the doorway, his back pressed against the now shut door itself, Xephos was hiding behind one of four the slim buttresses that ran up to the ceiling in the corners of the room, while Lysander did much the same on the other side of the door.

"You may want to stand back." commented Fumblemore over his shoulder, having not noticed them doing that practically since they came in.

It was several tense minutes of the Wizard running backwards and forwards muttering several incantations and operating strange devices before he turned to them, placing the bucket on the marble table-top.

Honeydew stopped chanting: "Please don't blow up." and waited with every one for the Wizard's verdict. The tension was so thick in the air, you could have cut is with a _spoon._

"Tada!" said Fumblemore.

"Oh!" exclaimed Xephos, creeping out from behind the buttress as Lysander and Honeydew stood up.

"Success!" continued Fumblemore, standing back and looking smugly at the bucket, the contents of which were probably golden..

"Success indeed!" congratulated Xephos, even though he knew that the wizard would not be able to hear him. Lysander and Honeydew gave similar praise as they walked towards the bucket on the table, eagerly awaiting to see what lay within and take it to Peculier.

But as usual with a wizard such as Fumblemore, things were not as simple.

Xephos looked over the rim of the bucket, but the sight that greeted him was not what he nor Honeydew nor Lysander expected.

The contents of the bucket were not golden, or glowing with an ethereal light. It was full to nearly the brim with could only be diluted mud with sulphur mixed into it, a few feathers floating idly around the pool of sludge along with the two Golden Apples that had been unceremoniously dunked into the brew.

"Is that it?" asked Honeydew in bemusement, once again fulfilling his roll as the Breaker of Silences. "That's the potion?"

"I-I don't know!" said Xephos, staring blankly at the bucket.

"Wow." replied Honeydew sarcastically.

"This is just a bucket of water-" began Xephos, before being cut off by Lysander.

"It looks like muddy water with two Golden Apples and some feathers in it..."

"How do we know that this actually a potion and not, well, that." asked Honeydew.

Fumblemore, hearing there voices but not comprehending, merely answered:

"It was a fifty-fifty chance that it did not explode."

"Amazing." growled Honeydew, crossing his arms with a huff.

"Well, we'll get this to Old Peculier right away." said Xephos, coming to the conclusion that they had no other choice but to trust this wizard.

Lysander straightened himself and placing the stop of the bucket over it and picked it up.

"Come, we must hurry..." rumbled Lysander. "...as little faith I have in this, as I do." he walked towards the door of the tower, the rain now ever heavier was hammering down on the walls. Even in this weather they would have to brave the walkway, it would be even more dangerous to stay here with Fumblemore.

"Yes, we must hurry." agreed Xephos, following Lysander towards the door.

"We must hurry!" parroted Honeydew.

Lysander opened the door and stepped out into the sheets of rain and started down the now treacherously slippery walkway. Xephos followed him and as Honeydew turned to shut the door, Fumblemore called out.

"I hope your daughter gets better!"

"THANK YOU," yelled Honeydew, "you crazy old bugger." He shut the door and followed after Lysander and Xephos. "Let's get the hell out of here before he blows us all up."


	8. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Diggy Diggy Hole.

Honeydew was the first to cross over the tree bridge back onto the island, it's long grass slick with the pouring rain, and trashing about wildly in the wind. The sky was even blacker than before, the huge thunderhead clouds blocking out the starlight, the only natural light was supplied by several brief yet mighty crashes of thunder followed by lances of lightening. Honeydew was eager to get out of the sky, where his glittering metal equipment, conveniently strapped to his body were likely to lure a stray bolt towards him. He headed to the edge of the floating island on it's western side and peered over, seeing through the flashes of lightening the in memorium fountain far below, a pool of deep choppy water.

Xephos and Lysander crossed and saw the dwarf kneeling at the brink, and Xephos ran over to him, looking over to see what it was his friend had found.

"What can you see? What have you found?" Xephos asked.

Honeydew stood in the dark, and turned to his friend with that all too common mischievous glint in his eye, which could be seen even in the dark.

"A fast way down!" replied Honeydew, who suddenly turned, ran to the edge and leapt high in the air, sailing outwards over the edge and plummeted downwards belly first, arms and legs outstretched. Xephos watched, aghast as his friend fell quickly towards the fountain. Just as he was all of thirty yards from the water when Honeydew tucked, rolled in a somersault and righted himself with his feet facing the water.

He hit the surface with a splash that could be seen and heard by Lysander and Xephos far above on the floating island.

"Idiot!" shouted Xephos. after he did not resurface for many moments.

A cry found it's way up to the island through the rain as Xephos wrung his bandaged hands.

"Come on down! The water is great!" called the laughing voice of Honeydew.

"I guess haste is of the essence." commented to Xephos, then nodding at the edge of the island.

Xephos's heart caught in his throat. There was no way that Lysander would get him over the edge. Not in a million years...

But unfortunately, shoves are an effective counter on thoughts.

Xephos felt himself sailing through the air, screaming as he fell, but he quickly gathered himself and flattened himself out with arms and legs splayed on either side of him, reducing his velocity. He saw through the rain and the lights of Mistral City the fountain he was approaching. He quickly balled himself and angled himself into a dive as he reached halfway through his fall. His speed increased and he dived head first, arms by his sides towards the water, his face steely. Thunder crashed around him, he would not scream, not let the falling break him. He was now rapidly approaching the water, he waited several seconds, counting the tim until he touched down. Xephos turned himself horizontal to the ground and opened his arms and legs to the air as if he were welcoming it back into his life. The water was twenty yards from him now, in the last seconds before hitting the water he pushed his legs downwards and hit the water with a crash.

He shot down into the water, which was many yards deep, and felt it smothering him, the pressure hard on his head. He began to panic as he remembered those dying seconds outside of Jasper's House, flailing wildly, grasping at the water as though climbing a ladder, but he could not get out.

A large hand grasped his collar and pulled him up and out of the water, he gasped as he reached the surface, sucking in air, his senses returning and he regained his ability to swim, he treaded water and turned to see Honeydew, one arm grasping his shirt, the other holding onto the outside of wall of the fountain, both were breathing heavily.

"That's twice I've had to pull you out of the water." gasped Honeydew. "Don't ever make me do it again."

Xephos gave a little gasp of laughter as he swam to the edge of the fountain, soon both he and Honeydew were laughing as they stood soaked through, the rain sure to make sure that they stayed that way.

Soon afterwards, solitary figure dived towards the fountain. The clouds parted briefly and the moon shone through showing the lone figure of Lysander falling towards the earth, arms out in front of him in perfect form as he closed the distance between himself and the water.

He hit it in the same position as he'd held the entire fall, barely a ripple appearing as he surfaced and swam towards the edge.

"Well done Lysander!" called Honeydew and helping the bedraggled Skylord out of the fountain. "You look like you've done that before."

The moon faded as the dark clouds moved over it's sleek face, plunging Mistral once again into darkness. The Skylord looked up.

"In my Advanced Skylord Training, we had to learn how to preform air-to-sea rescues by diving out of an airship."

"You must have been good at it!" praised Honeydew thumping him on the back.

"Full marks." smiled Lysander as he regained some of his posture.

"I'll bet that you never had to hit a marker that small though." said Xephos.

"No." admitted Lysander. "And not ever again."

"Oh come now!" cried Honeydew. "It wasn't _that_ bad."

"It may have gotten me over my heights problem, but not ever again." said Xephos, shaking his head.

"Well alright, if you insist." sighed Honeydew. "But can we leave now? With all of this gear on I feel like a lightening conductor."

Xephos, whom was suddenly very conscious of his own safety nodded vigorously.

The three started off Honeydew suddenly overcome by amnesia, was unaware of which direction they needed to head.

"Which way? Which way? Go go go!" he called following after Xephos who was running at the head of the group followed by Lysander, with bucket in hand.

"Which way is the quickest way?" Xephos asked as they passed the last fountain, they could either go down Victoria Street and then past Granny Bacon's, or they could take the side street.

"This way." said Xephos after a few seconds, headed towards the side street. "Past Granny Bacon's."

They headed down it and past Victoria Street and Granny Bacon's shoppe when a gurgling howl filled the air.

The groups stopped outside Granny Bacon's door as the zombie's cry echoed through the City. But it's owner was nowhere to be seen

"Can you defend us incase something attacks us on the way Honeydew?" asked Xephos. "I just heard a zombie." A hiss broke through the night from somewhere nearby. "And a spider."

"Alright." said Honeydew as Xephos started up the stairs going up the Ridge, which due to the rain had turned into an urban waterfall. The dwarf reached to his quiver of bolts at his hip and pulled out bolt. He always liked to carry a dummy-headed bolt with him, they were good for situations like this when you did not want to kill.

He fitted the bolt into his crossbow, and aimed steady as Xephos reached the top of the stairs, Lysander just starting at them.

Honeydew pulled the trigger and the ball-tipped bolt shot forth and hit Xephos in the small of his back, snapping and bouncing away in the rain.

Xephos gave a yelp and leapt high in the air, one hand on his back and the other on his sword.

"Ooh shit!" he cried, looking around in search of a skeleton, his eyes, however fell on Honeydew, looking _too_ innocent. "Was that you?"

"That was me!" admitted Honeydew, holding up his hands. "Sorry!" he laughed.

Xephos scowled as he gingerly touched the welt on his back. He walked quickly towards the Elysium, not looking behind him.

It was much easier for Honeydew to make it up the steps of the Ridge than it was for Lysander, whom he left behind and ran after Xephos, who by comparison had taken an age to climb the stairs. He found Xephos approaching door of Elysium, and called out to him.

"I've got your back! Unfortunately I've got an arrow in it."

Xephos got the joke, and laughed with his friend as he pushed open the door to the Elysium. He couldn't hold a grudge for long, especially not against Honeydew, who was usually playing some sort of tricks on him.

They entered and immediately headed towards the stairs, as they climbed them, Xephos leading, they could hear Peculier's haggard breathing, and they suddenly were unsure wether they wanted to see the old man.

The two headed up the remainder of the steps until Xephos was peering over the banister into the dark room. Lightening flashed and suddenly the whole room was illuminated black and white. Peculier was standing in the corner of the room, apparently in the exact same place that he'd been standing in for days, moaning like the undead. The flash subsided and the room was flooded with a blanket of shadow, only the faint glow of a few candles that were now no more than stubs were all that illuminated the room.

Xephos slowly walked out from around the banister and gesture for Honeydew to follow. They were getting close to Old Peculier who was still staring out the window, when they heard the sound of the door slamming shut.

"Please close my door on the way in..." scolded Lysander.

Peculier suddenly turned to face them, looking wild and unkempt. His eyes were more bloodshot than ever, his stubble was now beginning to condense into a real beard, and his tawny hair was thinner than ever.

"_Lysander!_" whined Honeydew. "What the hell! we were in a hurry!"

Lysander appeared at the to of the stairs, and looked at Peculier, who was yet to say a word, and the the bucket in his hand, that contained what would hopefully fix the old man.

"Heroes?" asked Peculier in his even croakier voice.

"Give me the potion Lysander." said Xephos, who was closest to Peculier, firmly, not taking his eyes off the old man.

Lysander handed him the bucket, Peculier was looking around the place like a confused animal or child. But once Xephos began to speak with him, he seemed to realise the situation and recover his memory.

"Old man!" Xephos said firmly but kindly. "Here is the potion."

"Let's get a bloody light in here, I mean honestly." said Honeydew drawing a torch from his satchel and sat down, holding it between his knees as he struck his flint and steel against one and other, the ball of sparks smaller than in was other times he'd used it steel, but it lit the torch easily enough, Peculier looked at him with recognition, and turned back to Xephos, who was trying almightily to get eye contact.

"Drink this and recover your strength." he told Peculier, ripping the cap off the bucket and handing it to the old man, who looked at it with distaste.

"Drink it! Drink it, Old Peculier, and be well." encouraged Xephos.

"It looks..." said Peculier, in voice that seemed rust from lack of use. "Horrible!"

Xephos, Honeydew and Lysander all either laughed or grinned, seeing their old friend was not completely gone.

"But it's for your own good, Peculier." said Xephos sternly.

"It tastes nice though!" commented Honeydew, switching into his posh voice again. "Like strawberries and single malt whisky. Mmm..." He smacked his lips.

"Ah." grunted Peculier, looking at the bucket as though he knew it had come from Fumblemore.

Lysander watched Peculier from the back of the room, and could not help but notice the bacon packages on the bed, unopened.

Peculier, slowly raised the bucket to his mouth, closed his eyes and drew a long drink from it's sludgy contents.

It was around now when what ever was in the bucket began to glow. The light grew more intense and the golden light beamed onto Peculier's face, but he did not stop drinking, even though he was drinking mud and feathers and somehow apples. The light grew to such an intensity that Xephos, Honeydew and Lysander had to look away, and when the light faded and the bucket clattered empty onto the ground, Peculier stood in the same place as he was before, but he seemed reborn, he stood taller, his back no longer bent, his eyes glowed with a clarity that they had not seen since his time in Terrorvale, they were now no longer bloodshot, but clean and blue as the deepest sea. He quickly stooped and with a quick tug he ripped off his splint. The company drew a collective breath as they expected the old man to stumble, but by the magic of Fumblemore, his body was mended along with his mind.

"I feel much better, thank you heroes." he said in his still dry and croaky but now strong and sure voice.

"There we go!" cheered Honeydew as a huge bolt of lightening arced through the night sky, accompanied by a huge thunderclap, but this seemed to be the last hurrah for the storm, because as soon as the thunder faded, as did the clouds, dissipating into nothing, the stars and moon now smiling down on the City.

"Hooray!" cheered Xephos as Honeydew let out a resounding "Aaahhhhh!"

"So it worked!" cried Honeydew, looking out of the window, up at the Wizard's Tower. "Fumblemore isn't just a crazy old wizardy bastard." Xephos laughed. "He's a genius!"

"I'm sure it wasn't the muddy water and feathers so much as the two Golden Apples that were in there, you saw the glow." replied Xephos.

"Welcome back, Peculier!" said Lysander as he walked over to him. "You are obviously better?"

"I can remember everything, my mind is clear now." nodded Peculier.

"Well thank goodness for that." sighed Honeydew. "We can _finally_ get some sleep."

"Oh, yes." said Xephos.

"I need to follow the footsteps of my father." continued Peculier looking at them all, not a hint of sleepiness in his eyes despite him have being awake even longer than them.

"Huh?" grunted Honeydew, moving closer to Xephos. "Is this a reference to him being a knight?" he whispered.

"Yeah, I think his Father was a knight, wasn't he?" replied Xephos, a little too loudly.

"He went missing one day, from his post outside the City." confirmed Peculier. "I have tried to find out what happened to him, but to no avail. I must try again."

An uncomfortable silence settled on the room, Xephos, Lysander and Honeydew were looking at their feet.

"Wow...ooh, err...can it wait until morning?" asked Xephos sleepily, barely able to keep himself awake now.

"How is this gonna help Daisy?" yawned Honeydew, but the yawn was so loud the message was incoherent.

"I feel twenty years younger!" cried Peculier in happiness, he clearly showed no signs of drowsiness.

"That makes me eighty-seven now!" whispered Honeydew.

Xephos could just hear him and had to stifle a laugh, he had the manners to not ask Peculier how old he really was.

"You do not look it, friend." commented Lysander, who'd been quite for the last few minutes as normal.

"I think he could do with a bath, maybe a cup of tea, a change of clothes, a fresh shirt, a shave." said Honeydew, counting off these on his fingers. "Maybe a bit of a poo... a jaffa?" he finished, once again referring to Jaffa Cakes.

"That can wait!" yelled Peculier.

"Maybe a shave first though, eh?" asked Honeydew, Peculier ignored him.

"That can wait, yeah. Shaving can wait, Honeydew." said Xephos. He yawned. " And so can this adventure."

"But we should leave now!" complained Peculier. Lysander walked up to him and placed a large hand on his arm.

"Peculier, we've been gathering those ingredients for days, with quite literally no sleep. If we are to find where your father went, we will need our strength. And so will you, you've been awake at least three days with no sleep. You feel fine now, but soon you're going to hit the wall."

Peculier nodded and agreed to wait until morning, which would not be far away. Lysander insisted that Peculier have his bed, and that he and Xephos and Honeydew would sleep, once again, downstairs.

Xephos headed down and found himself a comfortable position on his regular bench, Lysander returned to his armchair, and both were on the cusp of sleep when Honeydew, who'd been recounting what they had gone through to get the potion for Peculier, came falling down the stairs, he hadn't fallen or been pushed, he'd just been so tired that he could not bother walking down or staying awake, and he'd simply allowed himself to fall. He rolled down them and onto the floor behind Lysander's armchair. Who was looking at the dwarf in shock, Xephos, however had hardly registered the event.

"What was that?" called Old Peculier from upstairs.

"Our dwarven friend going to bed." responded Lysander. "Goodnight Honeydew."

The dwarf hardly stirred in his hide of miscellaneous equipment that he had not bothered taking off.

Xephos was asleep in seconds, Lysander took a while longer, but upstairs, Peculier was not even thinking of sleep, he was sitting on the end of Lysander's bed, looking out through the window over the oaks that lined the Ridge and over the City, cast in silver from the moon's light. His mind was abuzz, clear for the first time in years, since he was corrupted by Him, but he knew what he must do, he needed to pay a certain place a visit, and if necessary, pay it with blood.

Peculier woke them as soon as the sun had risen, eager to get on with his task. Lysander Honeydew and Xephos begrudgingly awoke, and much to Peculier's dismay, decided that it would be most prudent if they shared a meal from the leftover meat Honeydew had brought them.

"I need some gear, actually." said Xephos around a mouthful of bacon as he gestured to his boots that had began to fall into disrepair, with several holes in them and a few tears.

"I saw a pair of boots upstairs that may fit you." said Honeydew. "If Lysander is willing..."

"You may have them, I have no need for them."

"I'll go get them."

Honeydew ran up the stairs quickly, leaving the room in silence as Xephos, Lysander and Peculier ate for the first proper time in days. After a few moments of slow chewing, a stifled laugh could be heard from upstairs, and seconds later, Honeydew came down hold a pair of...well...whatever they were, they hardly deserved to be called boots.

They were calf length and had black feet that traversed into teal up the rest of the calf.

"They look..." said Xephos as Honeydew dumped them at his feet. "Terrible." But as gaudy as they seemed, their condition was a long shot better than his own, so he had no choice but to wear them. They fit well enough, and were lined with wool, so were extremely comfortable, and seemed to be made of rather tough material. They were actually rather good boots.

"From afar it would look like you are taking part in a sack race." laughed Honeydew as he handed the last three bacon packages of bacon to Xephos to put in his satchel. "Oh! You know what they are? Ug boots! You're wearing Ug boots."

"They're really quite nice." said Xephos, although they paled in comparison to Honeydew's diamond-plated ones. "Okay, let's go!" he said as he put the packages into his bag. "Where are we going?" he asked Peculier.

"I will lead you to his post!" agreed Old Peculier enthusiastically. He'd been up all night waiting, and it had been excruciating, but the breakfast was just salt in the wound.

Peculier got up and headed to the door at a run, he threw it open and let the early spring air and peachy light into the house. He led them out of the house, Lysander following him closely, with Honeydew and Xephos taking the rear, and forgetting to shut the door. Peculier led them towards the Sky Tower, leading the three to think that his fathers guard post was in the Upper City, but Peculier seemed to realise that the route he was taking was not the right one, and turned around to lead them back the other way along the Ridge towards Granny Bacon's.

He left Lysander, Xephos and Honeydew behind, and as he was running past the Elysium, the morning light passing between the trunks of the oaks, something dropped out of the one of the tree's branches and followed after him, hissing and spitting as it's eight huge legs scuttled towards him.

"Oh gods oh gods oh gods!" cried Xephos as the giant spider, it's entire body four yards long, leapt at Peculier, who turned, saw it and just managed to step out of the way as it landed on the cobblestone path, it's red eyes glowing evilly.

Peculier fumbled for his sword, but he did not have time, the beast was about to pounce at him again, when Lysander dived forward and swung his already drawn sword at the creature's abdomen, slicing it open.

The spider shrieked, and turned on Lysander, backing away towards the ruins of Peculier's old house, Honeydew did not let it get far though, he rushed forwards with his axe in hand, throwing it at the spider, it buried itself it the spider's head with a meaty thunk.

The spider tumbled over and thrashed it's legs in the air, until they finally it stopped moving, aside from the occasional twitch of the legs.

Honeydew sauntered over to the body of the spider and pulled the axe out of it's head, wiping the blade on the grass to get the bile off.

"Almost killed so soon after your recovery!" exclaimed Lysander.

"Whoow..." sighed Xephos as he came up alongside his companions, sword drawn but useless.

"It was a Sky Spider." said Honeydew jokingly, referring to the fact it had fallen out of a tree. "That's the worst kind."

Xephos laughed as he followed after Peculier who seemed to hardly register the attack, and ran along the path down the Ridge and past Granny Bacon's.

"It's like Drop-Bears. Ever heard of Drop-Bears? They live on some island down south." asked Honeydew, as Peculier ran out into the Fountains and headed for the City entrance.

"Yeah, yeah." said Xephos as they walked in between the rows of houses that led to the Gate.

"They just drop on you from out of the sky."

"Koala bears." corrected Xephos.

"Well, yeah, that's what some people call them. But they can ravage you quite badly."

"What do you mean?" asked Xephos as they ran out over the drawbridge, Lysander taking the rear. "They're lovely, they're cuddly!"

"They claw at you!"

"They're gorgeous!"

"They leave, these horrible scratches on you like paper-cuts." finished Honeydew as they followed Peculier towards the guard house that they had seen when entering the City. Assuming that it was Peculier's Father's Guard Post, they were surprised when Peculier turned before it and headed right, into the forest.

They followed him without question through the beech trees, the trees leaves that it had dropped during the winter lay on the ground, while up above they were had just grown their new green leaves. They ran after the old man, to their right the shore line was in still within sight, and after a few moments Lysander ran past them towards Peculier who was standing on the edge of a clearing located on the south western corner of the City.

As they approached they saw Peculier standing at what would once have been a normal forest clearing, but was now riddled with craters boring down into the earth and into the rock beneath. There was sign next to where Peculier stood, leaning against a tree, and when they got close enough they saw that it read:

Danger

Minefield

"We must beware of the mines." croaked Peculier, as he started to walk around the rim of the craters.

"Well it looks like allot of them have already been set off." said Xephos, who realised that this must have been the minefield Braeburn had referred to in his tale, as he followed Peculier, glad to be moving at a walk. "I guess by wandering animals."

"Yeah..." said Honeydew, who was walking behind him. "There is just some wool scattered around."

They followed Peculier until he lead they back into the forest and out next to the moat, specifically, the area with the whirlpool. Peculier was heading over to it, clearly intrigued.

"Good grief." he sighed as he gazed at the pool.

"Oh," said Honeydew. "we're _here._"

"Yes, we had an accident here, mostly Fumblemore though." commented Lysander.

Xephos, Honeydew and Lysander ran next to him they noticed that there was something being pulled towards the center. It was a creeper, it's legs working furiously to try and free itself from the pull of the water. The four watched with mixed emotions as the creeper was dragged down the hole, never to be seen again. Xephos felt pity for the poor creature, it would doubtlessly drown down there, and he knew what that felt like. A moment later a great stream of bubbles broke the surface as the creeper died way down in the dark.

"Let's just skirt around here." said Xephos as he and the others walked around the pool.

Peculier led them around to the other side of the whirlpool, and led them along the city walls next to the moat, which suddenly ended after a few hundred yards. Xephos remembered that he had lost a great deal of his things when he'd drowned, and suspected that it may have come around to the end of the moat.

"If you find any of my stuff around here," he said. "let me know."

"We're on the outskirts though." replied Honeydew, then in a mocking voice said: "Oh look, there's a couple of golden apples here. Oh yeah, they're mine." he grinned at Xephos as Peculier led them through a thicket of trees and as they approached the north-western corner of the City, a tower, apparently hewn from solid rock protruded from the ground a hundred yards from the walls, it was covered in ivy, dirt, and even had a tree growing out of the top of it. The whole thing looked rather camouflaged, which explained why they did not see it from the City, and looked unspeakably old.

"Oh!" cried both Xephos and Honeydew upon first seeing it.

"It's a ruined tower." said Xephos.

"Urrh." grumbled Honeydew looking up at it as he walked closer, inspecting the condition of the tower. "This place looks a bit of a state."

It was about fifty yards high, and in one place it looked as though a whole segment of wall had fallen out.

"This is my Father's Guard Post." said Peculier, staring up at the tower.

Xephos walked up to the entrance, above which the wall had fallen down. There was an old wooden sign, half rotten nailed above the entrance.

Ye Olde

Watche Towere

It read.

"It must be old with that sign on it." said Honeydew as he read in aloud, loudly pronouncing the "E's".

"It is, that sign is _ancient._" agreed Xephos as Peculier stared up at the tower and Lysander stood behind them. "It's language barely spoken in the modern world."

Their laughter was suddenly cut off as something streaked through the sky. It looked like a comet, but it was day-time, and it's tail was inky black. It looked as though it had come from somewhere over the City, but as soon as it was there, it was gone, it's black splash following it.

"Oh my gods!" cried Xephos looking up. "Did you see that?"

"What the hell?" yelled Honeydew, looking over the treetops to the west where the phantom had headed. "Yes!"

"Oh, you know what that was?" asked Xephos.

"I have a good idea." spoke up Peculier.

"Israphel." said Lysander after another one of his quiet spells.

"He's been here! Watching us." said Honeydew, placing a hand on the grip of his sword, strapped to his back.

"What the heck..." whispered Xephos. "Oh gods."

"Well that's creeped me right, the fuck out." gasped Honeydew, drawing his sword and axe, dual-wielding both.

"We cannot let him stop us." said Peculier. "Okay, we should look around here for clues."

"We shall stand guard. You do your searching." nodded Lysander.

"Okay." agreed Xephos, he turned and walked inside the watchtower, hand on his sword, incase there were any surprises.

The tower did not have any light source, but there were enough holes in the wall to allow a suitable amount of light inside. The inside of the tower was not much more than a spiral staircase heading upward.

Xephos followed the stairs until he reached the same section of the wall that had fallen out above the doorway. He looked out over the edge, but could not see anything other than the tops of beech trees. He could hear Honeydew's heavy footfalls coming up the stairs, he called behind him as he held the wall with one hand and leaned out over the edge.

"Can you see anything friend?"

The footsteps stopped behind him.

"I can see a spaceman wearing Ug boots-oh."

Xephos smiled as he pulled himself back from over the edge. He liked his nick-name, it was strong, mysterious, but unfortunately not as obvious as Honeydew's: The Dwarf.

"I can't see shi- I can't see any clues." groaned Xephos.

"Well the stairs continue up here." yelled Honeydew down from the continuing spiral staircase.

"Ah!" cried Xephos. "Ah, stairs."

He continued up them at a leisurely pace, approaching the top. However, he was just coming out of the opening in the roof of the tower, when he heard a hiss and Honeydew screaming.

Xephos ducked and held his hands over his head as the creeper exploded. He heard Honeydew screaming and looked up in time to see the blast knock him off the edge of the tower.

"Oh gods!" Xephos yelled, running over to where Honeydew had fallen and peering over the edge. "Are you all right?"

Honeydew looked up from the ledge that he'd only just managed to grab onto, dangling over the ground far below.

"Are you okay?" yelled Peculier from below, looking up at the two of them.

"I'm okay." said Honeydew shakily. "Luckily there was this little outcropping here."

"Are you safe?" asked Lysander, and Xephos noticed that neither of Honeydew's axe nor sword were present, and looking down saw both had fallen to the ground, the sword stuck end-first barely two yards into the ground from Peculier.

"What was that?" asked Peculier.

"Was that a creeper?" questioned Xephos as he leaned over and offered Honeydew his had to help him up. He took it eagerly and nearly pulled Xephos over.

"Yes, a "present" from Israphel." grunted Honeydew as he hauled himself over the rim of the tower. "I think that I _did_ slightly wet myself..."

"Oh my god." sighed Xephos, properly examining the battlement for the first time. "That was a near thing."

Over in the north side of the tower, opposite the side where Honeydew had been dangling, there was a crater in the side of the battlements where the creeper had exploded, and a recently snapped tree-trunk, the tree that they had previously seen atop the tower was either torn asunder, or somewhere below.

"Oh my gods..." sighed Honeydew, leaning against the rim of the tower as Xephos went through a chest near the explosion that turned out to contain no more than some old battered swords and a few other useless materials.

"Well it's even more ruined now." laughed Honeydew, despite very nearly dying.

"I think we should check the basement!" called up Peculier from far below, considering that they had not reported anything to him. "But it is buried."

"Well Old Peculier wants us to check the basement." said Honeydew heading down the staircase quickly, followed by his friend, equally as eager to get back on the ground, again.

"The basement, is buried." said Honeydew as they approached the door, next to which there was a large wardrobe that Old Peculier was going through.

"Where do we dig?" asked Honeydew in excitement, glad to get into the earth again.

Peculier pulled four stout metal shovels out of the aged wardrobe and headed outside.

"I have spades!" he yelled, handing one to Honeydew, and Lysander, who looked like he'd rather be doing anything else.

"Can I have a-" asked Xephos as Peculier handed him a shovel. "Thanks." he added.

Xephos looked around, expecting Peculier to tell them where to dig, but he looked just as clueless as they all did, save Honeydew, who had already planted his shovel into the ground and was digging with extreme vigor, planting his shovel into the ground, ripping it out and flinging the dirt over his shoulder.

"Well, I guess we just start digging at random, then."

The base of the tower seemed the sensible place to start, and soon they were all mucking in around the base of the tower, following a steady rhythm of plant, rip, fling, plant, rip, fling.

It was nearing midday that Peculier suggested that they search a wider area, after hours of industrious digging and Honeydew bantering on about how a famous dwarven archaeologist and previously entertainer was totally unfit for the job of an archaeologist, mostly because Honeydew had seen him in a loincloth, although he stressed that it was in one of his shows.

"Let us search a wider area." Peculier said.

"Yeah, Peculier probably knows this place, doesn't he?" panted Honeydew as he pulled himself out of the huge hole they had dug at the base of the tower, but found nothing. "I don't know why we didn't just ask him in the first place."

Xephos headed over to random part ground and digging test holes as deep as his calf before carrying on to another spot.

It was approximately midday and their morale was lower than ever, and Honeydew was the only one spare from blisters on his tough dwarven hands. Even Xephos had a few on his fingers, despite the bandages on his hands.

He was digging another test hole, one of now several when an idea struck him.

He ran to Honeydew, who was digging a tunnel from the bottom of their previous hole by the tower.

"Honeydew!" he called down the short tunnel where Honeydew was walking back in the dark. "I feel like we need a song to sing, whilst digging." the Dwarf looked at him, deep in thought as he emerged from the tunnel. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Umm... Possibly..." he mused as they walked back up to the surface, where Peculier and Lysander were working tirelessly. "It needs to be something funny, and sort of light-hearted." He dug his shovel into the ground and started to dig another hole near the forest, and began to sing and old dwarven miner's song, the beat fast and cheerful.

_I am a Dwarf,_

_and I'm digging a hole._

_Diggy diggy hole,_

_I'm digging a hole!_

_I am a Dwarf,_

_and I'm digging a hole._

_Diggy diggy hole,_

_I'm digging a hole!_

_Dwarf, hole._

_Diggy diggy hole!_

_Diggy diggy hole,_

_I'm digging a hole._

Honeydew continued to sing the song for several long verses, the beat lifted up the hearts of them all, and they redoubled their efforts, and for a while, the sun did not seem so hot, the dirt not so hard, and their hands not so sore.

After a few minutes of more digging and still more results, Xephos headed up to a slender tree next to the tower for a rest. As he sat with his back against the tree, he thrust his shovel head first into the ground, expecting it to stand there. But as it penetrated the earth, a loud hollow "_thunk"_ resonated from the earth.

After a few seconds of thinking, Xephos leapt to his feet and began to scrape aside the dirt on top of whatever he'd hit. After a few shovel-strokes, he'd cleared enough dirt aside for a wooden hatch to become visible, a chest, surrounded by the roots of the tree, being grasped.

"Ooh!" he cried as he saw it, calling the others over. "I found a chest! I found it, I found it!" Xephos said. "It was under the tree, Honeydew."

"Oh, gods dammit!" pouted Honeydew, as he ran up to Xephos, kneeling over the chest. "I was digging in the wrong area."

"Look!" enticed Xephos as Lysander and Peculier, both covered in dirt, ran up to them. "I found a chest!"

"Oh, right under a tree! Wow." gasped Honeydew. "So what's in there?" He pulled out his axe and began to hack at the tree, so that they may get at the box. "We have to remove the tree."

"Maybe the tree has grown out of it?" theorised Xephos.

"Yes, well even though it is a find, it is not the basement." noted Lysander.

"Who cares! Treasure!" yelled Honeydew as he continued to hack at the tree's trunk near the box.

"Well..." said Peculier, looking abashed.

"What?" asked Xephos.

"There never actually was a basement." admitted Peculier. The tree fell over away from them with a splitting crack. "I just said that so we would not give up on-"

"So we would not give up on finding anything." finished Lysander. "I would have preferred it if you'd have told us earlier, but never the less, we have found something!"

Honeydew had hacked away the rest of the stump that had been clutching the box in a gnarled fist, and was smashing at the lid of the oddly unlocked chest that had rusted shut using the beak on the back of the axe. after three blows, the lid juddered open, and Honeydew gestured to Xephos to open it. It was a rule that they had that whoever found treasure had the first claim to it. "Now you can open it."

"What is in there?" said Xephos as he knelt and opened the rusty and half rotted chest, expecting to find a set of old armor or weapons. But all that was in the chest was a remarkably preserved letter, it's seal of red wax unbroken and sitting all forlorn on the rotted chest bottom. He reached down and picked up the letter delicately, half expecting that it may crumble into dust.

"It's a piece of paper!" announced Xephos as he held it aloft. "There's a piece of paper!"

Xephos broke the seal, wondering what could be written on it, but to his dismay, the message within was written in a text he could not read, it's glyphs made no sense to him.

"Maybe Old Peculier can read it?" asked Honeydew aloud.

They all turned to face the old man, looking at the letter almost as though he did not want to know what it said.

"Old Peculier," said Xephos gently. "_can_ you read this?" Xephos passed him the letter.

Peculier examined the letters and symbols with fascination.

"It is written in an Old Tongue." he said huskily as he held it in trembling hands. "It is a note from my father."

A long silence descended unto them like a blanket of night as Peculier read the letter mutely.

"He talks of preparing an expedition underground," Peculier squinted at the next part, then lowered the letter. "To close a Hellgate."

A Hellgate, a slang term for Nether Portal, and if one was open, gods only know what might've come through. If the silence that had settled on them before was uncomfortable, then this silence was as painful as a knife thrust.

"Goodness..." gasped Xephos, wrenching the figurative knife from the wound. "Oh my goodness me..."

"He mentions the mineshaft in town," rasped Peculier, stuffing the note in one of his pockets. "That is where he went! We must follow!"

And with that, Peculier turned and started towards the City.


	9. The Shadow Of Israphel: Act 1: Chapter 9

Part 9: The Abandoned Mine.

Peculier was heading towards the City entrance on the other side of the City from the Watchtower, followed by Xephos, Honeydew and at a distance, Lysander.

"So..." said Honeydew at a whisper as they walked behind Peculier across the grass in the darkening sky. "Old Peculier's Father was a great knight, he himself was a knight, but then he got old and knackered. But we gave him a potion, and now he is following in his Father's footsteps, and is going to save the world or something, and Daisy too hopefully."

"I hope so." said Xephos, running his hand along City wall.

"We have to get to the mineshaft." reminded Peculier, supposedly having heard the conversation.

"Um..." mumbled Lysander awkwardly from the rear.

"I think Lysander is a little bit..." said Honeydew, looking for the right word, while keeping his voice down.

"A little bit cautious." offered Xephos, glancing back at the Skylord.

"Has a little bit of trepidation." stated Honeydew, slipping into the posh voice.

"It's getting dark as well." Xephos stared up at the Sky Platforms, their shadows long and dark.

"And I don't blame him at all." said Honeydew, referring to his previous statement.

They walked in silence for a few moments until Lysander spoke up.

"If it's all right with you guys, I'm going to give this one a miss..." they turned to face him, who was looking rather awkward.

"Lysander, what the hell man!" snapped Honeydew perhaps too sharply.

"I am a master of the sky, the bowels of the earth are scary for me."

Xephos had never seen the big man look so dejected, he hung his head in shame, not that Honeydew seemed to care, who turned and stormed off towards the City Wall.

"Great, what a wuss. _What a wuss._" he mumbled as Xephos ran to catch up with him.

"He's not a wuss, he's just a pilot, not a warrior, he's been dragged into this." said Xephos defensively. Although he had to admit that it was strange, other times with Lysander they'd been underground, like the tunnels on the road to Mistral City, and technically the Yog cave (or what remained of it) was underground, and Lysander had seemed fine then. "Where on earth are you going?"

Honeydew was down in a hole where the earth had eroded away from the Wall, and was digging chunks out of it with his shovel, which he'd decided to keep, while the other's had abandoned theirs, strapping it to his back.

"I'm taking a shortcut." spat Honeydew angrily, letting off some steam as he dug furiously at the wall of dirt. He was directly under the City Wall now, and Xephos let him be, he knew that his friend could not hold a grudge for long.

"What's...I mean what's the point, of just walking all of the way round the wall of the City?" asked the Dwarf. "I can just destroy the fucking wall, go through it, and then put it back. It's no big deal."

He was past the wall now, properly under the City, and above his head was a flagstone of the City floor. He began to ram at it using the butt of his shovel, loosening it.

"What are you doing?" shouted the angry voice of Lysander.

"I'm almost in!" cried Honeydew in a cheeky voice, proving what Xephos already knew about him holding grudges.

"That's one way in, I guess." said Peculier, coming down into the hole as Honeydew finally knocked the flagstone loose and hoisted himself up.

"There we are!" exclaimed Xephos.

"There we go!" joined Honeydew, as he helped to pull the others up through the hole. "We're in!"

"You'll leave us open to creepers!" blustered Lysander as he dusted himself off.

"We'll repair it, don't worry." assured Xephos as he looked around to see where they were, which happened to be next to the sports field.

"Close it!" screamed Lysander in a tone of utmost urgency.

Xephos helped Honeydew lift the flagstone and lower it back into place, stamping on it a couple of times to make sure it was sound.

"Beautiful." exclaimed Xephos, beaming.

"There we go!" grinned Honeydew. "Good as new! Nobody will notice."

Lysander was frowning thunderously, very displease that they had breached the wall for means of a shortcut.

"Um..." said Xephos absently as he looked around wondering where they were going. Father Braeburn, however spared him the trouble.

"Ah, fantastic!" the Father's voice carried across the City. "The Church is looking better than ever!"

"Ah!" shouted Xephos. "Apparently, the Church is looking better than ever, according to Father Braeburn." He began to walk briskly towards the Church, around the corner from the sports field, the others following him.

"'Uh?" grunted Honeydew. "Has it changed?" he asked as the rounded Snozzi's House of Adult Entertainment and Pleasure.

"Oh wow! Check it out!" gasped Xephos, who was leading the pack as he came into view of the newly improved Church of the Holy Record. The Church itself had not changed, but the great red apple stained glass window had been repainted it seemed into the semblance of the golden record. Standing back from the front of the Church, beaming even more than usual.

"I am very proud." he said when he saw them coming towards the Church. "Thank you, heroes."

Xephos headed into the Church to see if the interior had changed either. The moment he pushed through the door he saw that the rear stained glass window had also changed, into the same image as the one out front. He wondered where Braeburn had found the time and materials to do all of this, he mustn't have slept. Peculier came through after him, looking about in silent admiration, while outside, Lysander whistled in appreciation.

"Wonderful." praised Xephos, as he saw Honeydew through the other side of the rear stained glass window. On his way out after Peculier, Xephos noticed that sign above the door had changed. it now read:

The Holy Notch

shall smite he

who scratch the

Holy Record

He chuckled at this and went outside to see all of friends clustered around the front of the Church.

"He's changed the sign too." he told Honeydew as Braeburn stepped inside the Church, only then did they see that he still had the red apple on the back of his robe.

"He still needs to change his uniform though, look he's still got an apple on the back." said Honeydew pointing it out.

"Oh yeah, he'll have to work on that." said Xephos as Braeburn turned around to face them in the doorway.

"You are welcome any time!" he smiled.

"Your suit needs adjusting." commented Xephos, looking back up at the Church, with the night sky as it's backdrop. "But it looks great!"

"I just need some new clothes." the Father said as if this was not the first time he'd though on the matter. "Something for another day. One task at a time!" he smile dazzlingly.

"We should get moving." spoke up Peculier after a long while. "I fear that it is not wise for us to delay very long."

"Okay, right." said Xephos. "Where was the mineshaft?" he turned and headed back towards the sports field. "It was near the tennis court, wasn't it?" he asked himself as he rounded the corner, raking his brains, thinking back to the tour that Lysander had given them.

"Oh yeah, it was where the creeper was!" offered Honeydew, running around the corner and pointing at the shaft, that from afar, seemed to be no more that a wooden deck surrounded by a fence.

Just as they were about to head over, Lysander called out that he was going to go and attempt to patch up matters with Jasper, incase he tried to revenge himself or steal back the record. They said their farewells, and headed back towards the mineshaft.

"Uummm...It was around here, wasn't it?" Xephos queried as he ran past the tennis court to get closer to the shaft. "That's right it was around the back!" he remembered, leading them in between the City Wall and the shaft's fence. "Round this way, round this way..."

He got to the corner, rounded it and found himself beside to the warning signs next to the gate.

"Ah; Keep out, Danger, Mine Closed." he read as Peculier looked at the sign, reading it over and over.

"We must venture down." Peculier decided.

"Okay," said Honeydew. "So we're going down into a dangerous mineshaft, with a Hellgate in-"

"Yeah..." sighed Xephos.

"-That's clearly signposted _not_ to enter."

"Well what choice do we have?" asked Xephos, looking sternly at Honeydew. "Old Peculier says that we must venture down."

"We _must_ venture down." he repeated insistently. "I have to know my Father's fate."

Xephos nodded grimly, and plucked the diamond pickaxe from Honeydew's satchel. It felt heavy in his hands, but he still managed to swing it hard enough that the beak broke the lock off the gate, allowing them to enter.

"Let's do it," said Xephos as he pushed open the gate and onto the wooden platform.

"Is it all sealed off?" asked Honeydew as he waited for Peculier to follow Xephos, who threw the pickaxe back. "Do we have to chop down this wood?"

"Well I guess so." said Xephos looking about the platform, and seeing that there was truly no entrance, turned to Honeydew. "Do you have an axe?"

"I do." he replied, pulling out the diamond battle axe, and tossing Xephos an iron one that he'd picked up from gods-know-where. They were going to need to get him a bigger bag.

"Thank gods for that." Xephos sighed.

They began to hack at the floor at random, Xephos chose to do it on the side, the place most likely to have any form of stair way.

"What if this place was seal off for a reason?" asked Honeydew. "You know? Like if dangerous things-"

"Whoah crap!" cried Xephos. "There's a massive hole under here!"

Xephos had been hacking at the boards and finally made a breach, but all that was down there as far as he could see was inky blackness like the belly of a great beast.

"Of course there is, it's a mine shaft." said Honeydew as though he were explaining basic sums to an infant.

"Be careful where you dig, friend." Xephos warned anyway, and looked over to see Honeydew was standing on an area of the platform where it was made from stone, he was hacking out the wood near the end, when he realised what he was digging out.

"Oh, they're stairs!" he shouted Xephos over to help him, so they could finally descend.

Peculier, who'd been sitting on the end of the platform unable to do anything, finally spoke up after a long time in thought.

"Come to think of it," he mused. "the mine closed around the time my father went missing."

This did not help to improve the atmosphere, which was grim at best. Xephos and Honeydew had finally done clearing out the stair. It descended until it came to the wall of the mine, when it turned and carried down to the next wall of the square based shaft and turned again, suddenly lost in the thick darkness.

"Oh cripes, It's very dark down there!" yelped Honeydew.

"Do you have torches?" asked Xephos as Peculier squeezed past him, but Honeydew was lighting one as they spoke, the light from his flint and steel lighting the room briefly before guttering out as quickly as it had appeared, the last few sparks drifting down to the ground, suddenly forgotten by the steady glow of the torch that was now lit.

Honeydew held the torch aloft walking down the stairs steadily, once he got to the second landing of the stairs another stone platform below the wooden one. In the corner, Honeydew noticed a sconce with an unlit torch in it, hoping that the return journey may not need be so dark, he lit it, and then every other one that he came to. The stone platform had a gap on the side where they could descend further down.

"Oh gods, this just goes down and down, doesn't it?" mumbled Xephos peering down into the dark as Honeydew and Peculier explored the stone platform.

He lit one of his torches off the one that Honeydew had lit. And led the way down past the stony platform.

"Oh gods." moaned Honeydew as he took the rear. There was no platform that they could see this time, only a sheer drop that seemed to hypnotize them and beckon them to jump.

Xephos led on, lighting every torch that he passed, suddenly there was throaty hiss and moan from below.

"I can hear noises." Xephos said, the zombie's call seemed to respond to that, gurgling up from somewhere near.

Honeydew imitated the call, causing them all to shiver.

"Oh god's," swore Xephos descending further, lighting another torch. "This is not nice at all, is it?"

"Make sure you've got a sword at hand." advised Honeydew, as he drew his own, the torchlight causing it to shine and reflect the light across the shaft. Xephos took said advice, and so did Peculier.

As Xephos descended and lit another sconce, he could see a two flights below, a creeper standing on the landing, somehow unaware of them.

"Oh, okay, there is a creeper down there. Um...Okay" he informed his companions.

"Monsters!" Peculier cried, that got the creeper's attention, and so did the one above them, high above on the first landing, it must have followed them in, but as it was a creeper, and not the most intelligent of creatures, it walked directly towards the source of the noise, plummeting past them to die on the floor far below, it's hiss streaking past them. Honeydew was taking care of the second one below them, stringing and knocking a bolt into his crossbow with deft hands.

"Ooh! Gods," said Xephos looking up at the ceiling as Honeydew shot down at the creeper, which slumped over and feel down the abyss. "Fucking hell, did you see that? I think that they are spawning, in the...ah..." he swore.

"In the darkness." completed Honeydew, lowering his crossbow.

"Nice shot congratulated Peculier.

"Aww, geezes. Let's get a move on." sighed Xephos, leading them down the stairs until another platform of stone loomed out of the darkness, a creeper was waiting for them there as well.

"Oh gods! There's one down there, there's one down there watch out." cried Xephos, Peculier pushed past him and jumped on top of a pile of barrels and crates at the bottom of the stairs that had been placed there as a barricade presumably.

The creeper started towards Peculier, who lashed out awkwardly with his short-sword, battering it back off the pile a few times before he missed a stab and the beast began to hiss.

Two quarrels sprung from the side of the creeper, it stopped it's lethal countdown and fell from the pile, turned to Honeydew, standing on the stairs, reloading his cross bow, loading it with two bolts again, a bonus that the weapon had that he'd implemented. The two other quarrels shot from the falcon's mouth and hammered themselves into the creeper, killing it instantly.

"Oh well done, well done." cheered Xephos. "Nice shooting." _Peculier is rather ill equipped, though._ he though after ward, looking at the rust spotted and notched sword.

"Let's put down some torches." Xephos said, hopping over the pile of refuse and kicking the creeper in the head as he passed to light some torcheshe saw on the walls.

"Well what does this sign say here?" asked Honeydew as he descended the stairs where Old Peculier was standing in front of a piece of paper that had been hurriedly wrote out and nailed to the wall of barricade. As the room grew brighter due to Xephos lighting the torches, Honeydew read aloud the note.

"What does it say?" asked Xephos.

"Danger, mine abandoned, keep out."

"Oh."

"Great."

"Amazing." chuckled Xephos nervously. "Well are we going down again, I guess?" he pulled his axe from his satchel and began to slash and push his way through the pile of debris, hoping that the stairs continued under them. On the other hand, he'd be very happy if there were no more stairs at all. "Pass through this wood." he told the others.

"I guess so." agreed Honeydew, helping to pull away some of the barrels and crates.

Finally they'd moved enough away so that the planks that were covering the stairway below became visible.

"There we are." said Honeydew, going to move the boards away.

"Wait." said Xephos. "Those heavy crates and such were on top of there, well what if they were supposed to stop something from getting out?"

As if in response to that, a rattling hiss came from below, They'd all heard it before, that was the sound of a giant spider.

"I can hear spiders." breathed Xephos.

"Oh gods Xephos. I know, I don't like spiders." flustered Honeydew, but never the less removed the boards carefully. "and I'm still not entirely convinced that what we're doing is the right thing."

The boards were put to the side, and as they looked down they could see another platform below, this one was crawling with spiders blacker than the darkness they lived in and eyes glowing red, their bodies three yards long with wickedly sharp fangs.

"There are giant spiders down there!" cried Peculier, thankfully the spiders did not seem to hear nor see them. Honeydew slowly walked down the short flight of steps until the first spider saw him and came at him.

"Oh my god!" he squealed quickly running back up the stairs.

In his place, Old Peculier rushed down the stairs as the first spider began to climb, and ran it's head through with his sword. More started to come out of the darkness, leaping at Peculier, who was hacking off limbs and stabbing at them.

"Peculier!" called Xephos as one nearly bit into the old man's arm. It quickly lost it's head. "Stay back old...ol...oh my gods there are a lot of spiders."

Peculier did not respond, he simply continued to kill the spiders as they came at him, their bodies forming a small pile around him. As Xephos watched, he saw that the old man's grip on his sword was off, so was his stance, and the way he was attacking, too much stabbing and not enough slashing as such a sword demanded. He was clearly used to another kind of weapon. He was still killing the spiders though.

"Get back old man, get back!" warned Honeydew as Peculier ran through another spider as it leapt at him, there seemed to be no end to them.

"He's killing them though." said Xephos in admiration, the old man seemed not to hear. "Flippin' heck, he's mental!"

"Well he used to be knight, didn't he?" replied Honeydew.

"God's he's like a hero." breathed Xephos as he killed another.

"He's got a new lease of life hasn't he?"

"I know, what the hell."

Peculier seemed to have killed the majority of the spiders that were on the landing, because now he rushed forward into the darkness, Xephos gave chase, axe in one hand, sword in the other. Followed by Honeydew, clutching his sword and torch.

"DIE, YOU EIGHT LEGGED BASTARDS!" hollered Peculier as the entered the chamber.

Upon rounding the corner Xephos saw that under the stair sat a steal cage wrought with flames, inside a tiny ethereal likeness of a spider floated and a moment later in a puff of brimstone, two more spiders appeared and rushed them.

"Oh gods." Xephos yelled. "THERE'S A SPAWNER."

"Oh gods!" Honeydew cried when he saw it. "There _is_ a spawner!"

Spawners, creations of unholy malice, were magical cages that were created for one means, to bring back the dead souls of killed monsters and make them fight whatever came their way, there could be different kinds of spawners too, of the varieties zombie, skeleton, spider and the dreaded blaze and silverfish.

"Shit!" swore Honeydew as Xephos and Peculier fought of the two spiders. "I've got it, I've got it, I've got it." he ran forward with his torch in hand. One of the fatal flaws in Spawners in that what is made in darkness can only work in darkness. Honeydew began to light off several torches of his own, throwing them onto the ground around the cage.

"There we go." sighed the Dwarf as he was done.

"Okay," huffed Xephos as he embedded his axe in the spider's head, and left it there. "We know how to deal with these don't we?" he sighed heavily.

They looked about the chamber and saw that there was no more stairways, and it was not surprising, they had come deep, down dozens of flights of stairs, and ended up probably very close to the nigh impenetrable layer of Bedrock. But looking around it was very clear that this had been an abundant mine, there were minerals all over, including a vein of gold that Honeydew stared at using the diamond pickaxe.

In hope of finding the way onwards, Xephos explored the back of a tunnel that had been dug to get at a redstone vein, and then thinking it was another tunnel he had missed, Honeydew's hole that he'd dug to get at the gold. He'd smiled and said that he'd let his "Dwarfly" instincts take over.

Xephos moved on and saw that in the corner was a boarded up tunnel mouth with another note on it.

"What does this say?" he read out the note. "Diamond Shaft, closed, do not enter." he turned to Honeydew and Peculier. "Hmm, and guess where we're going?"

He walked over to the remains of the spider that he'd fought and wrenched free the axe, he'd need to use it on the door.

"Oh." said Honeydew as he examined the note as Xephos began to hack the door down. "Do you think? Hmmm..." he added sarcastically.

"I guess we just bash through this then?" puffed Xephos as the door finally broke down, by the torchlight, he cold see the tunnel on the other side. "Oh yeah look, here we go."

"Um..." he added as he hesitantly stepped into the shaft, the walls all around him hacked out by picks into a jagged passage.

"Ooooh!" quavered Honeydew as he saw the tunnel ahead, long and dark like a snake's throat.

"Oh great, it's a long dark tunnel, I _hate_ tunnels." whined Xephos. "Why are there always tunnels?"

"It's a mineshaft, what did you expect exactly?" asked Honeydew as he handed Xephos his own torch and pushed him forwards. "You first?"

They made their way along the tunnel slowly, the torches in their sconces were spaced further apart, and the ground was so uneven underfoot that Peculier tripped and fell early on, and they had to help him up.

"Is this a diamond shaft? You know how people are always digging shafts on the "Diamond Level"?" he turned to Honeydew for his dwarven expertise, but the dwarf only shrugged. Xephos had always thought it was a superstition.

As they continued, suddenly the path veered downwards and Xephos could see a faint glow coming from down there. Cautious, he told Honeydew to go first this time. The Dwarf headed downward until the stairs plateaued, and just before him half of the tunnel was taken up by liquid fire that leaked from the walls.

The magma moved slowly and smelt as miners described it, and they were right; hot.

Honeydew turned and beckoned the others down, he's left them up the top with the torch. They descended warily, and the second Xephos saw the lava he knew that they must be deep beneath the world indeed.

"Um, be _very_ careful, that is lava, and, I think bedrock." said Xephos turning his head towards the floor and saw that indeed the floor had a large gunmetal rock protruding from the lava. "Do you want to fill that in with something if you can?" he asked Honeydew whom was standing perilously close to the lava.

"There we go!" said Honeydew as he noticed a pile of refuse boulders in the tunnel ahead.

He rolled back a few and used them to block the flow of the lava, but without it it got dark very quickly, leaving them in the torchlight again.

"There we are," said Xephos "nice and safe." But even he knew what would happen if the pressure built up to much.

"We should continue." said Peculier speaking for the first time in a long time.

"Head on through." agreed Xephos handing the torch to Honeydew who was now leading the way.

The Dwarf lead them through the narrow tunnel, winding to avoid rocks of unbreakable bedrock.

"Oh, so we're at bedrock level, then?" he said.

"Oh my gooods..." mumbled Xephos in despair. "We're down deep."

Honeydew began to sing a tune that he did when ever he was done near bedrock, or ever whenever someone mentioned it.

The tunnel continued onwards for ages, and Xephos found his mind wandering to what was above them, how far they'd come, and what direction they were headed, the spiraling stairway had disoriented him so.

The tunnel suddenly entered a small chamber with a path that veered off to the left sharply, and another leading straight ahead that too had been boarded up. Honeydew turned immediately after lighting a sconce next to the boarded up tunnel that had another note on it, and followed the path. Xephos however turned to the sign, wishing to read it's yellowed face.

"Lava warning, shaft sealed with TNT, keep out." he read, and became sure that this was a door that they did not want to break down. But such thoughts were driven from his mind when he heard Honeydew shouted from down the other tunnel.

Peculier leapt into action, turning and running down the tunnel, followed closely by Xephos.

"What's this?" yelled Xephos ahead as the tunnel turned sharply to the left again and they saw Honeydew ahead, staring at something that was down the tunnel as it turned to the right. There was light coming down there too.

"Um..." said Honeydew as Peculier reached him and pushed past, Xephos giving chase.

They found themselves in a huge cavern, the ground was covered in sand, rubble and charcoal, and atop a ruined dais in the room's center, was the broken structure of an ancient Nether Portal, it's obsidian frame carved into the likenesses of many vile beasts, their faces contorted by rage and the explosion that had racked the Portal, some of the dynamite had failed to detonate years ago still littered the floor.

"Oh my..._gods_!" gasped Xephos in awe at the destruction before them.

"Here it is!" said Peculier, running across the room to the foot of the portal, not much bigger than a large wardrobe

"This is what's left of a portal, there's TNT, there's sand." observed Xephos, looking about as he walked towards the dais, the sand crunching underfoot.

"Sand again..._sand again?"_ whispered Honeydew in puzzlement. He was right to be puzzled, there had also been sand outside their Portal, and they still didn't know where it came from.

"What is the deal with all of this sand?" queried Xephos

"Looks like my father managed to destroy it just in time." sighed Peculier in dismay, for although they knew what the result of his expedition had been, they still did not know what had happened to Old Peculier's Father. That was when Xephos saw it.

"Oh god's. What's that over there?" he wondered aloud. Behind a pile of gravel in the corner of the room there was something chiseled onto the wall of the cave. He ran over to it.

One glance was all he needed to tell him what the ragged letters chiseled onto the wall meant, and who it was for.

"Oh, gods..." he breathed, calling Honeydew over and getting him to use his shovel to scrape the gravel away from the walls, by then, Peculier had arrived, the one whom this message was intended.

Honeydew cleared away the rest of the gravel and the message was fully revealed, and with it the fate of Old Peculier's Father.

By torchlight, they read it's words:

_Son, if you are reading this, then I am dead, I have walked through the Portal to seal it shut, know that I did this to protect this land from a terrible evil. In the Nether is a spirit that would destroy the world. It must NOT be let into this world, at any cost! If it somehow gets loose again, you must vanquish it. My armor and blade are here, it falls to you and those who stand with you to save the world. -K. Peculier. Fight well my son and know, that I love you._


	10. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter10

Act Two:

The Burning

Chapter 10: Revelations.

Old Peculier stood over the now opened chest in front of him, within lay what few possessions his father had left him. His old and knackered sword lay on the ground behind him, and as he donned his father's armor, a padded robe of bluish-grey wool that in turn was covered with leather armor, giving the item an aura of elegance and intimidation all at once. He reached back into the box and this time pulled out his father's helmet, a crested barbute that allowed great visibility and protection. Peculier donned it with prestige and once more reached into the box. This time there was only one item in there now. He now pulled out his father's sword, tight in it's scabbard and it's plain black belt wrapped around it. Peculier buckled this tightly around his waist, drawing it as he turned to face Xephos and Honeydew. He had not shed a single tear for his father, but instead he felt as though a gaping hole in his heart had begun to finally heal. After years of believing tat his father had left them, he now saw the light. His father had done his duty.

Peculier then noticed the sword, it felt oddly snug in his grip, it was light and long and thin. It would not cleave a man in two, but with it you could dance around him and riddle him with holes before he could touch you.

For the first time in years, Peculier felt he had purpose.

As Old Peculier turned to face the two of them, Xephos and Honeydew noticed that the old man seemed even less distraught than they were. Xephos had felt a tear building up in his eye during the previous episode, and Honeydew seemed to be faring even worse, he was trying desperatly to hold back tears, a battle he was on the verge of losing.

Peculier looked back at them with a face that was a mask. He showed naught. The old man- a title that seemed unsuitable for the bent and crippled old man they'd known. Even in the fading torchlight of the cavern, his face seemed younger. He held himself taller, and his grip on his father's rapier seemed far more natural and comfortable than that on his previous.

But the most striking thing was his eyes. The bloodshot long gone from them had allowed them to see his eyes as indigo, but now they shone like amythests in the light.

And then he disappeared. Old Peculier had left them forever, the man who stood with them was him as he had been years ago when he was at the height of his power.

Before them stood Knight Peculier.

They exchanged not a word between them, because at that stage Knight Peculier had noticed a small book in the pocket of his new armor. He pulled it out a realised it was his father's diary. he skimmed through it, as he approached the end he saw read of horrible things, and knew that they must get to the surface.

"Oh shit, son." swore Honeydew as he looked on at Peculier's transformation.

"My Father's diary is filled with grave information." announced Knight Peculier as he returned the tome to his pocket.

"That's terrible," sighed Xephos.

"Oh dear." Honeydew put in. "Well it was never going to be good news was it? It was never, say, going to be a journal of happy thoughts."

"Yeah; "Today, I patted a unicorn."" spoke Xephos. Honeydew echoed with an "aww"

"It is as I feared, the evil of the past has returned." said Knight Peculier, sheathing his sword. "We cannot waste any time!"

"Okay!" answered Xephos.

"Oh shit," Honeydew swore. "That's exactly what we've been doing, we've been wasting time."

Without warning, Peculier took off towards the exit of the cavern.

"Oh my gods, he's off! He's off!" said Honeydew.

"Where are we going?" asked Xephos as he followed closely after Peculier.

"We must hurry to Verigan's Hold!"

"Where?"

"Verigan's Hold?" repeated Honeydew. "Not to be confused with Verigan's Fist, which is the very well known war-hammer." He's learnt about that too from Granny Bacon who said he himself had quite a legendary war-hammer too.

"I will explain later, heroes," breathed Peculier. "follow me!"

The group turned sharply right and followed the dark tunnel. But there was a problem, the fact that it was _dark_.

Peculier stopped.

"Well he doesn't seem to be in a rush anymore." said Honeydew.

"Where have all of the torches gone?" asked Peculier in the near total darkness.

It took a moment for Honeydew it light a torch and pass it up in front to Xephos, who pushed past Peculier to take the lead. They were at the point of the tunnel where they'd had to block up the lava flow with dirt.

"That is a good question..." said Xephos cautiously as he walked ahead and found a torch still in it's sconce, but it had recently guttered out, though recently enough that it was smoking faintly. The smoke danced through the air on a breath of wind coming down the tunnel.

Xephos drew his sword and advised that the others did the same, the sound of them leaving their sheaths echoing sharply down the tunnel.

He walked forwards and lit the dull torch next to him and continued forwards, his sword glowing faintly blue in the semi darkness.

"Gods, this means monster could be spawning."

"Oh no..." Honeydew groaned as they continued up the tunnel and along, lighting all of the ominously doused torches along the way.

"I'm right behind you old man." said Honeydew reassuringly to Knight Peculier. It felt wrong calling him an old man now, though, he seemed more like a middle aged man who'd stayed awake far too long. He seemed to have gained some of his youthfulness in the cave behind them.

As Xephos reached the tunnels end that opened out into the bottom of the huge shaft, he remembered the spider spawner.

As he rounded the corner into the shaft one of the black spiders pounced at him. Xephos wildly swung his blade up and caught the beast, slicing upwards, splitting it's abdomen and thorax wide open.

Xephos looked up and saw that the spawner was now enshrouded by darkness and the torches Honeydew had placed were scattered across the floor, snuffed out by the darkness.

"There are spiders!" He cried.

"Oh shit, just deal with it, deal with it! I've got an axe!" squealed Honeydew as he ran out behind Xephos, but Peculier rushed forwards as two more spiders were conjured from the spawner.

"Foul beasts!" he yelled as he drew his father's long thin sword and rushed the nearest spider.

Xephos was about to come to Peculier's aid, but he had already killed it with two quick movements.

"What should we do? Fuck!" swore the dwarf as he kicked back another spider which Xephos then knocked away to be finished by Peculier, who seemed to be far more skilled with his father's blade than his own old one. His stance was more correct, and the way he leapt forwards and back to stab seemed more suited to this sword. He seemed to dance about the black spider, the sword becoming a part of him as he dealt it a swift death.

"We should have killed this thing, shouldn't we?" said Xephos as he began to reignite the fallen torches before more mobs spawned.

Honeydew, however had another plan. He produced his shovel and began to cover the spawner in the broken shingle that covered the floor, hoping to bury the cage.

"I don't think that works." said Xephos, theorising that the spawner would still be covered in dark, and monsters could still be brought forth. "They'll still spawn."

"No, no, It's fine." assured Honeydew as he drew his sword and axe.

Xephos sighed.

"Let's just get out of here."

"If you completely encase it the nothing can spawn." said Honeydew as Xephosand peculier led the way up the stairway that wound back up the mineshaft. But even as he said it a spider appeared before him in a cloud of noxious fumes and pounced on him.

"Apart from that thing there!" he cried as he crossed his weapons to block the creature's pounce. The weight of the spider threw him to the ground where the horrid thing tried to snap at his face. "Fuck! It doesn't work Xephos! It doesn't work!"

"Well yeah, it works really well!" replied Xephos as he ran over to the spider as it bore down on his friend. He deftly slashed it in two from head to tail.

"Shit, you nearly got me on the family jewels!" panted the dwarf as he threw the two halves of spider off of himself and got to his feet.

"We need to light this place up so those things won't spawn," stated Xephos as Honeydew ran over to the gravel pile that covered the spawner in the blackness. "I'm all out of torches though, I used the last one to ignite those ones you just buried. Do you have some?"

Honeydew didn't waste time in producing four torches and lighting them off one of the torches down the tunnel they'd just emerged from. He then ran back and jammed them into the gravel that surrounded the spawner.

"We must make haste!" urged Peculier from the foot of the long stairway.

"Sorry Peculier. Let's go." agreed Xephos as Honeydew ran over to them with three torches, handing one to each of them.

"We're making haste!" he said as they began to climb the long stair to the surface. "Oh, gods, we keep on faffing around! We always do."

"We always get distracted by stupid stuff." Xephos agreed.

They ascended in silence for a while until they could see the light from the surface above them. They approached it with aching legs when Honeydew broke the quiet.

"So how come we're in suddenly in a rush? 'Cause years have passed since Peculier's father's time," They began to come up to the surface. "Since his dad, sorted out stuff, so now why-"

They emerged from out of the top of the mineshaft into a chaos of rubble and fire. All around them Mistral City burned, it's flames rearing high, from the buildings and the rubble strewn across the ground.

"Oh...This doesn't...It wasn't me." said Honeydew.

"Uhhh?" said Xephos.

"In Notch's name! The town has been attacked!" cried Peculier.

Attacked did not do what remained of the city justice. The buildings and houses were all but husks of themselves, burning wreckage was more common here than it was at the Celaeno's crash site, but the Upper City had suffered the most brutally. The walkways were burnt to ash, and some of the islands had even been partially blown up. And of somethings, there was no trace.

"Attacked?" wailed Honeydew in despair. "What do you mean attacked?"

"Heroes, follow me!" yelled Knight Peculier.

They ran across the top of the shaft and vaulted over the fence on the rim, where they we surrounded by fire.

"Gods! There is a lot of fire, this isn't good at all!" said Xephos, looking up. "All of the walkways have burnt, I don't even think that this can be put out."

So they ran through the ruins of the city. Peculier led them around the blacksmith, past what seemed to be the remains of Jasper's Airship, crashed as he tried to escape. Xephos wondered if he managed to get out alive. Past the notice board; which Xephos noticed told that Mrs Miggles had found her cat and had gone to Icaria, which seemed to be familiar. Peculier then led them through the graveyard to the city's Center. All of it was on fire. The ash fell like snow, it covered everything, making the City grey, save the ever present glow of fire.

Xephos, Honeydew and Peculier stood amoungst this storm, looking about at what had been a once great city, now reduced to rocks and embers, they could not speak, could not even cry out, for who was there to hear them?

Honeydew saw something flapping in the wind on the wall of the Church, a small burnt piece of paper nailed there for someone to find.

"Xephos?" he said huskily as he walked over to the note. "Xephos! Look! It's a sign!"

Xephos ran over to the Church of the Holy Record, which was still largely intact due to it being mostly stone save it's flooring and the majority of it's interior.

The note was slightly singed on the edges, but it was still readable, and it was easy to tell who'd written it by just reading the first three lines:

_Anyone! Help!_

_The Holy Record_

_is trapped in_

_the Church!_

_I have _

_fled to Icaria._

_Please bring it to me._

_ ._

_P.S: You will_

_be well rewarded._

"It looks like most of the townsfolk managed to escape," said Peculier in a dry voice. "But where is Lysander? He would not abandon us."

"Oh gods, so it's in the Church?" said Xephos as he kicked down the burnt door and stepped into the burning church. The fire was yet to entirely consume the interior, but the floorboards were gone and yet the lectern and chest that stored the Holy Record seemed to be untouched.

Xephos led the way into the Church of the Holy Record, drawing the axe he found in the mineshaft.

"Come on Honeydew, let's do some firefighting." he said as he hacked away at burning pieces of timber that had fallen from the ceiling, blocking his path.

"You're supposed to used fire to fight fire, Xephos." intoned Honeydew as he too entered the Church with his flint and steel drawn, beginning to light fire on the non-ignited pieces of wood in an attempt to cause back burning.

"No, you use axes to fight fires!" Xephos quickly disposed of the small fires caused by his friend, and made his way past the burning pews to the chest where the record was.

He opened it to find the record inside and unharmed by the flames, he took it out gingerly and held it out to Honeydew.

"Do you want to take this?" he asked. "I have tendency to "die" more often than you do. Therefore you should hold onto it." Xephos added darkly.

"A cunning plan." Honeydew agreed, and then began to cough after inhaling smoke.

"We have the record, let's get out." said Xephos as he too coughed out smoke and quickly made for the door.

Knight Peculier was waiting for them, his face a mask. He waited for Xephos and Honeydew to get their lungs filled with air again, a feat that is rather difficult when it is raining ash.

"Old Mister Duke used to have a hidden store, if I remember correctly." he announced as he lead the heroes around the side of the Church back towards the blacksmith.

"But there wasn't anything in here before." piped up Xephos as they entered the blacksmith through it's still largely intact doors. On the inside the smithy was nearly totally pristine, save some small singeing around the door.

Unshaken, Peculier ran to the far corner of the smithy where the window looked out to the grain field that was now burnt to the ground.

Peculier wrested Xephos's axe from him and began to hack at the floorboards in the corner, after a few swings it gave away to a hole with a ladder leading down to a lighted chamber.

""Secret" being the key word there." said Honeydew.

"Oh, a hole." Xephos looked down as Peculier dropped the axe descended to the floor of the chamber.

"With Granny Bacon in it maybe?" asked Honeydew.

"Ah yes, here it is!" he called up.

Xephos and Honeydew, in their hurry almost got stuck on the ladder as they tried to both go down at the same time.

Xephos went down first and Honeydew followed into a small storeroom that was illuminated by glowstone, there was also a doorway that led to another room, both rooms had were stacked with supplies.

"We should get resupplied and then search for Lysander!" Peculier mused, Honeydew and Xephos immediately running to the largest crate that had painted in a rough cursive:

_Jasper's Order_

_Awaiting Payment_

"Jasper's gear? Oh no..." chided Honeydew as he pried the lid off with his sword. Inside was filled with wood shavings but after rummaging around they soon found a bundle of new torches, four dirks, a flint and steel, and two sets of steel plate armor. The armor was finely crafted, each set of helms, breastplates, leggings and boots were sparing in armor to enable mobility, but where there was steel, it was hard and light, held together with dyed green leather and fabric to act as camoflauge in the wilds.

The pair quickly donned the armor to find that it didn't fit Xephos enough and fit Honeydew too much. After some adjustment they were suited up in their new armor, the greathelm of with Honeydew discarded in favor of his old horned iron one.

The sets of armor also came with dark green woolen surcoats, which they both donned quickly, Xephos also putting on his greathelm to complete the look.

"I've needed this." came Xephos's voice now tinny from behind the can shaped helmet. "I've needed this for a while."

"I feel like a real hero!" agreed Honeydew as he took one of the dirks and clinched it to his now very crowded belt.

"We look like amazing warriors of the forest."

"What?"

"With this armor on we look like foresty warriors! We're all green and felt-y."

"I suppose..."

"You look like you could use a larger pack though, friend."

"I could, yeah..." admitted Honeydew.

Xephos only managed to see through his sight slits the large leathery object flying towards him only a second before if hit him.

He grasped wildly at whatever it was and saw that it was just what he'd been speaking of; a rucksack. he took of his helmet to see that Honeydew had just caught one too and turned to see Knight Peculier standing near another crate that seemed to be labeled:

_Leatherwork_

"I heard you needed them?" said Peculier in a impatient manner.

"Oh thank you!" replied Honeydew.

"Yeah thanks, friend." thank Xephos too, as they both literally took off their satchels and quite literally upended them into their new rucksacks. after some rearranging they had their weapons and such attacked to their new bags they were ready to go. The bags were much roomier than their old ones, and more comfortable, they also had handy hooks for hanging quivers, scabbards, helms (which Xephos made used of) and many other things from.

Honeydew stood up with his new pack on his back, his crossbow and quiver strapped to it, and his shovel sticking handle first out of the top.

"Ready? Good. Let us hope Lysander's home is not ablaze." said Peculier as he climbed out of the storeroom.

"Is there anything else in here?" queered Xephos as he took one of the dirks and entered the second room to find it mostly bare save a few small bags on two desks in the corner. As Xephos ran over to them he saw that each bag, roughly the size of two fists together, contained either small ingots of iron or gold.

"Ooh, there's some gold and stuff in here, should we take them?" he asked to Honeydew who was heading for the ladder.

"I'm not sure that you should, Xephos. You would be stealing from Daisy's dad." said Honeydew as he began to climb.

Xephos began to load the bags into his rucksack.

"Well he wont be needing them, he's probably dead. He'd want us to have them."

Honeydew stopped at the foot of the ladder.

"_Oh my gods!"_ he cried.

"We might need them!"

"Such calousness!"

"Where we're going-" began Xephos as he appeared at the door.

"I'm glad Old Peculier can't hear you, he'd be livid."

Xephos laughed as he pushed past Honeydew and climbed out of the hole to Knight Peculier waiting for him.

"Where are we going now?" he asked Peculier as he helped Honeydew out of the hole and walked towards the door of the smithy. "Are we going to try and salvage some of the town?"

"We have to find Lysander!" wheezed Peculier.

They walked out of the door and looked up to see the once clear a clean sky that had at one time had walkways and islands caressing it, but now the sun was hidden by a veil of ash that settled on their faces, upturned like those of children gazing in awe and horror.

"Everything is gone." said Xephos as the truth settled in. "There is only a shell of the city left."

The company began to walk back past the Church, whose interior was beginning to burn furiously, and towards the Ridge.

"Who did this?" said Honeydew blearily. "Actually, I have a fairly good idea."

They rounded the Church of the Holy Apple for the last time and walked quickly past the cemetery and towards Victoria Street.

"He-who-must-not-be-named." Honeydew scoffed.

They headed through Victoria Street, both sides of the street's high buildings were flaming heavily, their fronts completely burnt off, the heat that resonated from it was nigh unbearable.

"Oh no!" cried Peculier. "Victoria Street is burning!"

"Oh gods, were gonna have to run this." warned Xephos.

They readied themselves then charged down the road, the flames catching their draft behind them and leaping after them.

"At least Peculier will not be unhappy about his house burning down." jested Honeydew. "'Cause now everywhere is burning down."

They rounded the corner of Victoria Street and towards the Ridge, where thank fully the flames had subsided. But to the left nothing remained of Granny Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe save some fragments of the wall burnt down to knee hight and the counter and back wall that seemed on the verge of collapse.

"Oh no..." breathed Xephos, running into the ruins of the store, half expecting to see Granny Bacon lying face down of the floor. "This was Granny Bacon's Tea Shoppe!"

"Noo!" screamed Honeydew following Xephos up to the ashen counter that had two freshly burnt fruit cakes that were iced with ash on a platter.

"There's still some cake in here if you need it." said Xephos as though to compensate, though he hoped that Granny had managed to escape. He thought on this as he shook off most of the ash from one of the cakes and ate a few bites before throwing it into his bag, Honeydew doing the same, both of them famished, Peculier meanwhile had become tired of waiting for them and climbed the ridge.

Xephos leapt over the counter as Honeydew finished half of his cake and stowed it away. Pulling out draws with a clatter, Xephos began to grab handfuls of what could be salvaged from Granny's collection of choice silverware and dropping them in his worryingly nearly full pack.

"Now you're nicking the silverware?" gwaked Honeydew when he looked up. "How could you?"

"It will go to waste otherwise." said Xephos as he moved on to another draw. "Besides, we can sell this stuff off. And for a good price too by the looks of this stuff."

Suddenly, Peculier cried out.

"The Guard Tower has fallen!"

"Oh Jebus, go go go!" said Xephos as they leapt over what was left of the Tea Shoppe wall and scrabbled up the Ridge to where the guard tower had, quite literally fallen.

The tower that had once floated on an island high above had fallen out of the sky and now lay sidelong over what had remained of Peculier's house, It was cracked and fractured but still somewhat intact, aside from the fact that it was sideways.

"Oh gods," exclaimed Xephos. "Was this the thing that was up in the air!"

He looked up and saw that it indeed was, as the walkway that once connected it to the rest of the Upper City now hung over nothingness.

"The Elysium!" yelled Peculier, who'd begun to run along the ridge towards what seemed was left of Lysander's House.

As he ran after him, Honeydew for the first time since leaving the mineshaft saw Peculier as the frightend old man again, the one they had to constantly run after and protect.

"Oh gods." breathed Honeydew as he and Xephos caught up to Peculier standing outside of Lysander's house. "The Elysium."

"Lysander's house..." sighed Xephos.

Not much remained save the building's skeleton and some of the walls along with the second story floor. The entire roof had been eaten away by the fire, and the low burning fire that still clung to the frame said that this was likely one of the first buildings to go up in flames.

"He's not in here by the looks..." said Xephos as they kicked down the fire swollen door and entered what was left of the Elysium. The supports were periously unstable-looking, and the constant creaking of the upstairs floor was not helping the matter. The back wall was gone except for the fireplace, that looked on the verge of falling, there was also a gaping hole in the carpet under Lysander's burnt rug that had gone from lilac to black, but Lysander was nowhere to be seen.

"Lysander?" called Peculier through the smoke.

"Gods, what if we just found his body somewhere?" said Honeydew fearfully.

"Let's try upstairs." reasoned Xephos.

Peculier led the way up followed by the two others, but on the rickety second floor nothing remained save the ashes that were once the bed and the untouched bedside cabinet. Yet no Lysander.

"Now what was it he said?" cried Honeydew in a rage. "What was it Lysander said? He said: "I'm a Skylord; I'm afraid of going underground." Do you remember? He said that! If he'd come down with us, he'd still be here."

Xephos ran over and looked in the bedside cabinet, looking for something, anything that Lysander could've left, but there was nought but what he'd left there for Peculier when he was gravely ill.

"Well he's a ruler of this city, I doubt he would've stayed hidden in his house while the City burnt." said Xephos heading for the stairs. "He would've gone out there to help people escape, or fight off whoever did this."

"He could be anywhere then!" growled Honeydew, following Xephos down the stairs. "He could be dead!"

Xephos ran down the remaining stairs and turned to head out of the door, but as he turned he nearly fell into the gap under the rug, that he only now really paid attention to. It seemed to be dug out, in fact the dirt floor that sloped up and out of the hole seemed to have been dug into a stairway, and there also seemed to be light emerging form the bottom of the stairs...

"Uhh, what is this under his rug?" questioned Xephos as he turned to Honeydew and Peculier who had followed him. "There is a hole in the ground."

"Ohh..." gasped Honeydew as he came forwards and began to lower himself in.

"...Shit, son." completed Xephos.

"What?" said Honeydew as he stood on the set of doubling-back stairs.

"I'm a bit scared." admitted Xephos, wondering what could be down there, for one thing was certain, this hole had been made for a reason, a reason Lysander wasn't too keen on the rest of the world knowing about.

"What's down he-re." stuttered Honeydew as he began to descend further down the stairs.

Xephos dropped down and helped Peculier down too, and the two of them began to follow Honeydew's trail when all of a sudden Honeydew raced back up the stairs staring at them with wild eyes.

"Okay, this freaky." he said quietly, leading the other two down into the chamber.

"What." said Xephos. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

The chamber was quite dark, but light enough for the company to see that the room's walls ceiling and floor were of some kind of dark-red fleshy rock that seemed to almost pulsate in the half light that was given off by what can only be called an altar, pushed up against the wall of the small chamber.

The altar seemingly eminated fear, the dark wooden surface was carved into a screaming faces of men, women children and beasts until it flattened out on the top into a platform on which sat a effigy of a screaming face similar to a creeper's sculpted from orange tallow wax, a wick in it's mouth was lit, and had been for some time, the likeness had begun to melt, it's wax dripping across the altar. But behind the fetish bolted to the fleshy wall pulsing in the candle light was a plaque bolted to the wall, where word were written in dripping ink.

"Noo!" cried Honeydew. He fell to his knees and began to sob.

"_Dark Master, I worship your unholy power..." _read Xephos hoarsely. "Signed: _-Lysander."_

"It can't be!" yelled Honeydew.

"It is." whispered Xephos as he turned to his friend an nodded at the sign. "It's written in his cursive, same as the one on the Celaeno."

"Lysander is a bad guy? No...no!" Honeydew was screaming now, Xephos was sure wherever Lysander was now he could hear Honeydew.

Xephos approached the altar where he noticed in front of the effigy eight shards of obsidian surrounding a pebble of glowstone, which was only found in the Nether, this wasn't just an altar, it was a shrine.

"No...Lysander..." croaked Peculier. "How could you have burnt fair Mistral?"

"Honeydew, come look at this, tell me what you think of it." said Xephos to his friend who didn't seem to want to move at all. He did however have the grace to look up.

"The altar?" he sniffed, looking hard at the wood, studying it. "That is mahogany!"

"It's on the altar you baby!" cursed Xephos.

That got Honeydew on this feet. He _hated_ being called a baby, he found it offending to the hight of his people.

"What?" he said abruptly as he walked over to the altar.

"What do you make of these?" Xephos pointed at the arrangement of obsidian and glowstone.

Honeydew looked hard at it for a few seconds before speaking.

"It's a representation of a Hellgate, the obsidian frame here, and the entrance to the Nether here." he pointed at the glowstone.

"I thought so, what do you think it means?" said Xephos.

"It could be that Lysander was building a Portal, or that there is one allready-"

Suddenly a shrill voice cut off Honeydew cold, a voice they all recognised too well.

"Help! Unhand me you fiend!" cried Granny Bacon from somewhere nearby.

"Granny!" yelled Peculier. "This way!"

"Oh gods! I'm comin' my love! I will rescue you!" Honeydew screamed as he followed Peculier out of the chamber. "Come on Xephos, keep up now, come on. FOLLOW ME!"

"I'm right behind you pal, I'm coming." assured Xephos as they climbed out of the shrine chamber.

"So... was it Lysander who burnt down Mistral City?" asked Honeydew, runningnafter Peculier out of the doorway.

"That's what Peculier said, I don't know. Well..." replied Xephos as he ran up beside him. Peculier seemed to be leading them towards the fallen tower. "I don't know."

"Why would he do that?" asked Honeydew in bewilderment as Peculier came to stop at the Watch Tower. "And where's Granny?"

The sun had begun to dip low in the sky, the ash that was thrown by the wind was already turning the sky red as blood.

"Oh fucking hell." breathed Xephos. So what do we do here?"

"Where is she?" asked Honeydew again to Peculier who one arm outstretched on the wall of the tower, the other pressed to his head in concentration. Honeydew, realising that Peculier would yield no answers, turned on Xephos. "Where is she?" he asked with an expression similar to that of a puppy begging for food.

"I don't know." said Xephos, wondering where indeed she could be.

"My love! Where are you my love?" cried Honeydew to the wind, around now Xephos had begun to suspect that this was theatrics.

"Well she's probably underground somewhere." theorised Xephos, suddenly remembering an incident that occurred in this very place only days ago. "So can we just dig down, 'cause there was shit under here before... do you remember?" Xephos knelt down and began to root out the grass and dig downward with his bare hands. It didn't take too long for his fingers to once again break through the earth that had been built over the original ground of the city, leaving the huge unused catacombs below the entire City.

"Oh yeah, I remember." said Honeydew, pulling the shovel out of his pack and opening the hole wider for them to leap through and into the Under City.

Turns out there was very little down there in the earthen caves, and certainly not Granny Bacon. Honeydew voiced this after only a few seconds of investigation in the low light that was being emitted through the gap in the ceiling.

"Nah, I don't think there is anything in here, it's just where the City was built over top of."

They turned to leave when a pig dropped through their entry hole.

"There's a pigu here though." said Honeydew as the pig squealed and ran off into the darkness, probably where it would starve to death.

"Pigu?" asked Xephos.

"Yes Xephos, Pigu is Xingan for pig. Did you know that?"

"I didn't." admitted Xephos as he Jumped and grabbed the ledge, hoisting himself out of the Under City, reaching down to help Honeydew out.

The turned to see Peculier waiting for them again by the Watchtower.

"I think I heard Granny's voice coming from the Old Castle." He said. "But to get through we need to break through this Watch Tower." Peculier turned and faced the Tower, which indeed blocked all further travel, thankfully a section of the wall had broken away in the fall, so they would only need to break through one of the walls.

They entered the tower, where all of the furniture that hadn't been obliterated into chaff was littered around the room they were in.

"How are we going to break through?" asked Xephos as he hammered on the wall of the tower, it was hard stone, and it was thick too, the fall had only done so much to it.

"Honeydew, use your Dwarven Might to break through the wall." said Peculier.

Honeydew stepped forwards tossing his small diamond pickaxe up and down and began to hammer at the wall with incredible speed. Dwarven Might was a power that his people were able to use when mining, it allowed them to dig with superhuman speed and strength for a short time. It also had the habit of turning the user's eyes temporarily to a glowing gold.

"Dwarven Might!" Honeydew cried as he bashed a small gap in the wall and worked at it with incredible speed. "AAARGH!"

The hole was opened up to a large enough size for them to climb through in a matter of seconds, opening up on the bank of the moat that framed the edge of the Ridge District. Peculier, in his haste leapt through as Honeydew took a final swing at the wall, and was accidently hit on the head by the pick's backswing, sending him into the cold water.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" apologised Honeydew, the gold light fading from his eyes as Peculier stood up in the waist deep water, thankfully his father's helmet had saved him his life, but he still looked annoyed.

"Oh goodness I may have assulted him slightly." said Honeydew as he and Xephos jumped into the moat where Xephos had killed creepers only days before. The crossed the moat where Peculier had already climbed out.

The pulled themselves out of the river and stood on the top of a small hill overlooking the burning ruins of Mistral City. They stood on this hill looking back at it, the sun setting had lit up the city a brilliant red in the ashes that danced in circles around the houses as the flames raged, the living flames, as they breathed the air, and ate the city. Never before had Xephos, Honeydew nor Peculier seen a more saddening thing, as the sky was splashed with the city's blood and the sun that spilt it set on Mistral for a last time, they turned and walked towards the ruins of the castle that Xephos had seen days before.

"We're going to find him." said Xephos, tears gathering in his eyes. "Lysander will answer for his treachery, and so will that damned Israphel." he grasped Peculier by his shoulder. "We're going to find him. And so long as the sun burns hot and the wind blows cold we will fight these people who prey on the innocent beauties. There will be a price for this, and so help me it will be paid."

Peculier merely looked back at the city, once sculpture like, was now a twisted and contorted mess. He said nothing.

"Oh so it's this crumbling ruin that I saw before, but didn't go into." Xephos spoke up, looking ahead to the overgrown fortress, it was a sad little thing, it wouldn't have really been mush even in it's splendor, but now it was hardly more than collapsed walls covered in vegetation.

Xephos turned to see Honeydew staring off into the distance across the vale that extended past the castle. He was looking at what seemed to be a huge land-bridge extending from somewhere out in the forest towards what seemed to be, but he couldn't be sure as it was quite a ways off, a huge wooden scaffold with a sail on top of it.

"Oh wow, see over there in the distance?" Xephos said.

"What the hell?"

"It's like some kind of amazing bridge into some kind of sail-boat thing by the looks of it."

They turned towards Peculier who was walking towards what could've been the entrance to the castle, but it was too covered in ivy to be sure.

"No! No, we can't be distracted and look at the scenery, Xephos!" Honeydew cried as the ran after Knight Peculier. "We can't be distracted." he stopped suddenly. "Is this Verigan's Hold?"

Peculier marched up to a section of the wall where a gravel path that once had led to the bridge Xephos had destroyed. He reached up and grabbed a handful of vines and pulled at them toughly. The ivy and other plants fell away to reveal a small anclove in the wall where two rusted iron doors would otherwise have been hidden by the vines.

"Oh well I guess not?" said Honeydew.

"Heroes, please. Time is of the essence." urged Peculier, turning to Xephos and Honeydew. "My Father's Diary tells of a nightmare cult: The Cult Of Israphel."

The name itself was enough to send shivers down Xephos and Honeydew's spines, and left the atmosphere considerably darker.

"Oh my gods...Well that's just fantastic news." sighed Honeydew.

"It was based in this abandoned Castle." continued Peculier.

"Oh..." said Xephos.

"It gets better!" mocked the dwarf. "What comes next? "Heroes, I have some cake for you." "Hooray!"." he laughed. "No... Anything else?"

"My Father destroyed a Portal there, but the Cult must've rebuilt it!"

"Oh right, right, so there's a Hell Portal in there, well that's great." Honeydew turned to the doors to see if he could find a latch or knob to open it, there wasn't.

"Go! Save Granny, and destroy the Portal!" yelled Peculier in farewell as he suddenly took off around the side of the castle.

"So Granny's in there, she's probably going to be some kind of human sacrifice or something..."

"Oh gods, where's Peculier going?" Xephos wondered aloud.

"Oh?" Honeydew turned and followed Xephos as he ran after Peculier.

"Where're you going?" yelled Xephos after Knight Peculier.

"There is now time to lose!" the old knight called back as Xephos rounded the corner of the castle wall to seem Peculier running towards an oddly shaped mountainside at the south-eastern corner of Mistral's gates.

"Maybe he's going to a side entrance or something, 'cause you can't get through those doors at the front." said Honeydew as he raced ahead where Peculier turned back to face them from twenty-or-so yards away, his stony expression of determination stopped the two companions in their tracks.

"Meet me at Verigan's Hold!" he yelled back. "When you're done, take the back road out of town," he turned to run onwards, but shouted back: "And good luck heroes!"

Honeydew and Xephos followed Peculier over a small hill that was paved and fenced on its summit like a balcony, where they watched Peculier running towards the warped stone face of the cliff, where a single large tunnel mouth gaped like a mouth. Only it _was_ a mouth.

"Good luck, friend!" called Honeydew as he waved, not noticing the peril yet.

"Honeydew, look at the mountain!" called Xephos as Peculier, now a small figure disappeared into the cave. "It's a skull."

The entire face of the cliff had been carved into the likeness of an enormous grinning demon skull, it's eyes were deep and empty, save two pinpricks of red light in their deep shadows, the top of it's head was not smooth and dome-like, but gnarled with several small horns, but the mouth was the worst. It opened like doorway to the Void, all black and framed with uneven fangs that had a long stone tongue like that of a snake's slithering down onto the ground, leading into the gullet of the stone monstrosity, the whole thing lit up red by the burning city behind them.

"Oh Jebus Christ." mumbled Xephos as he leaned on the fence, noticing a sign bolted to it. "Oh this is nice; "Viewing point. Mistral City Tourist Board."" he read.

"Oh yeah it's _lovely_._" _said Honeydew flatly. " It's _lovely_ isn't it?"

"With the City on fire in the background!" Xephos looked over at his gloomy friend. "You look so disheartend!"

"I am a little bit." he admitted still staring at the horrible skull that seemed to be somewhat familiar. "Old Peculier has left us, well he's not even Old Peculier, anymore, he's Knight Peculier. That's what it is, he thinks he's to good for us, that's what it is!" he said as the two began to trek back to the front door of the Old Castle.

"I dunno, he seems to have things to do. We need to save Granny anyway, we don't need Knight Peculier."

"Okay, but let's see if we can find a way in first."


	11. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter11

Chapter 11: The Crumbling Ruin.

"Okay, need to find a way into the place," said Honeydew as the two ran around to the front of the castle, still haunted by the Skull Pass that leered behind them.

Xephos grunted in agreement.

"To rescue Granny Bacon from the Cult of Israphel that's inside castle here."

They came round to the front where Honeydew tried to kick down the two steel doors, to no avail.

"Maybe there's a way in the top?" deduced Xephos, who followed Honeydew on top of the low battlements by climbing the vines that hung from the walls. But the castle had no courtyard, it was more of a heavily walled strong-house, the type that was designed to hide something...

"I cant's see any way in up here, Xephos." sighed Honeydew. The roof of the castle was missing chunks of rocks and had more divots than an old breastplate, but there seemed to be no way in. "I wish Peculier was here to help us, but we're no going out on our own." Xephos walked out over the roof to see if the hard stone had any gaps.

"We're like little babby birds, who've been kicked out of the nest by their mother." Honeydew continued. "And now Xephos, now we have to learn how to fly."

"I think we'll be fine..." replied Xephos as he got to the center of the roof where another battlement was raised out of the castle's sloping roof, here, there may be a way down.

Honeydew obviously had grown weary of this, and was dropping back down to the front doors, probably to attempt to force them open while Xephos searched for a way in.

"Ah!" came his cry. "There's a ladder here!"

"Oh?" answered Honeydew.

"It doesn't seem to go anywhere though... Like it's been boarded up."

Honeydew was tired of this.

"Ah, fuck it, let's do this _our_ way." he shouted out as pulled off his pack and reached in to grab the bandoleer of dynamite that he'd removed after finding the City on fire, because frankly, running through a fire with TNT strapped to you was suicide.

"TNT?" yelled Xephos as Honeydew placed a stick of it at the feet of the two doors and quickly lit it with his fling and steel.

"GET OUTTA THE WAY!" he screamed as he ran back down the path as the dynamite exploded with a huge bang that shook the castle.

Xephos, who has been running down the roof of the castle at the time towards the doors was thrown off his feet by the explosion.

"Ahhhh!" he screamed at the bang, landing arse first on the ivy covered roof, then began to laugh. "Nice!"

"Are you alright?" called Honeydew, who looked up from where he'd ran and hidden behind a fence, to see Xephos jump down in front of the two doors that were now warped and barely hanging from their hinges in the partially destroyed walls.

Honeydew climbed to his feet beaming.

"That was good..." he said breathlessly.

The smell of sulphur hung in the air as they passed through the ruined doorway to a short flight of dark stone stairs, unfortunately ending at another set of equally large iron doors.

"Oh are you kidding me?" yelled Honeydew angrily as he tried to kick down the door, but these held just as fast as the others. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Oh right, another set of doors." said Xephos.

"Another set of bloody doors!" the dwarf began to walk back up the stairs into the night.

"I hope that you didn't use all of the TNT up."

"Oh?" Honeydew said inquisitively. "There's a sheep in here, Xephos."

Xephos ran up the stairs to see his friend looking through a small gap that the explosion had made in the wall of the castle, though which there was, in fact a scrawny emaciated white sheep trapped in a tiny little room on the other side of the wall.

"Here, look. Look at him!" laughed Honeydew. "Do you think it's a Cultist of Israphel?" he laughed again. "Oh my gods it's an evil Cultist! Noooo..."

They both could not help but to laugh at this, even though the sheep's face did look disturbingly human...

"Unbelievable." Xephos sighed.

"Bless him." Honeydew said as he ran back down the stairs to the second set of doors. "So how do we open these...we could find a crow-bar somewhere, I don't really want to waste too much dynamite."

"Well why not? It would be better if we just-"

Honeydew leant against the right-hand wall and there was a soft click, at which, the doors behind him opened with a loud and rusty creak, bathing them in light and a wave of heat.

"Oh?" Honeydew gasped as he stepped back from the wall, where a grey brick had sunk into the wall, the secret button opening the doors.

"That's one way I guess." Xephos followed Honeydew into the next room.

"Now careful now!" Honeydew called as Xephos came up behind him.

There were no more doors in this room, but a stone catwalk extended far down the wide corridor, but was surrounded on either side by glowing magma, the source of both the heat and light. At the end of the catwalk there were another flight of stairs that ascended for a few steps before continuing down a tunnel.

"There are some levers either side of us." Honeydew noticed, and indeed there were levers on either side of the door frame.

"I wonder what they do?" mused Xephos, who was getting very hot underneath his armor, and was keen to get into the very cool looking tunnel ahead. "As a way to open them from the inside. Should we pull one?"

Honeydew, suspecting the room to begin to fill up with lava at the lever's slightest touch, quickly pulled the lever, which resulted in doing no more than indeed triggering the doors.

"Oh." he sighed. "I thought everything would blow up."

"Mine doesn't seem to work. I think you blew it up with your TNT."

"Oh well-"

"Shall we go onwards?"

So the set off single-file down the periously thin catwalk, purposely designed so any intruding force would have to continue slowly an be at risk of falling in, or shot by archers that could easily be hidden behind the walls.

They reached the other side quickly enough, climbed the stairs to the tunnel where they were greeted by a cool breeze and a message that seemed to have been written onto the wall in blood.

""Abandon hope all ye who entere here."." Xephos read word for word. "Lovely."

"That's reassuring." said Honeydew as he stared down the dark tunnel before lighting a new torch.

Honeydew led the way down the corridor, lighting ancient bundles of foul smelling rushes that were clamped into the walls, their acidic smoke making their heads spin. The torch Honeydew carried illuminated the way ahead until the floor began to curve and slope down into a shallow spiral, it's rough walls were dry and jagged.

"Oh gods..." whined Xephos.

"I love going through these horrible dark tunnels in which you don't know what's ahead of you." said Honeydew jovially as he paced down the curved path into the dark.

"We must be nearly there, though," answered Xephos, lowering his voice. "I think we're getting close though, I can hear something."

Honeydew listened, and he could hear soft steps ahead around a sharp corner.

"I think I can hear a spider..." he whispered, unsheathing his sword and stalking ahead.

"Oooooooooooo!" he screamed backtracking back round the corner.

"What?" asked Xephos. "Is there a spider down there?"

"...yeah...yeah..."

Xephos ran around the corner to where a set of steep stone stairs led down into a small unlit chamber where a huge black spider standing in front of a spawner saw him and ran forwards.

"Oh gods..." said Honeydew as he humbled to load his crossbow while Xephos kicked the creature back into the room and drew his sword. "It's okay." he assured as Honeydew fired three arrows at once out of the cross bow, hitting the spider in it's thorax. "It's just a spider."

The spider, still alive began to climb back towards them, right as another spawned.

"Keep shooting it!" Xephos told Honeydew as he reloaded and shot the new spider as Xephos ran down the stairs and killed both of the spiders.

"We should've made some more arrows." he said as Honeydew followed him down the stairs, grabbing some rushes off the walls and lit them before throwing them onto the floor.

"Destroy the spawner, quick!" but then he realised that that would no longer be nessicary. "Oh, or we could just leave these here." he said to Xephos who holding a sheaf of burning rushes nodded and headed to the other side of the room where the tunnel continued.

"Easy-peasy-lemonAHHHH!" he cried out as a green face ran at him out of the dark. "Creeper! There's a creeper down there!" he and Honeydew ran back as the green monster emerged from the tunnel into the spawner room. "Arrows!" yelled Xephos as he reached for his quiver to find his gone.

"I'm all out of arrows!" said Honeydew as well. "This is _not_ good timing!"

The creeper was getting closer, they realised as they backed up the stairs they would need to engage it in melee or at least blow it up.

The creeper was at the foot of the stairs when Xephos ran forward and stabbed it twice in the head with his dirk and kicked it back down the stairway where it began to swell and hiss.

"Not good timing!" voiced Honeydew from the top of the stairs as Xephos leapt back up the stairs right when the creeper exploded.

"Ah!" he yelped as the explosion knocked him into the wall. He stood up and shook himself off. "It's alright. we took it out." he sheathed his dirk. "although, in hindsight I should've used my sword."

"Okay..." said Honeydew as he tried to negotiate what was left of the stairs, which was really no more than a drop after the creeper had had it's way. "I'm a little bit worried that we might not be able to get back up here..." he said as he and Xephos dropped down the slope, which was too high for them to climb back out of.

"It'll be fine, there'll be another way out, surely." condoned Xephos as he headed back into the tunnel, this time only the dim glow of his sword guided him. "Besides, by now it's likely they know we're here." By his sword's light he walked ahead until once again the floor angled gradually down till it flattened out to a corridor again. But at the foot of the stairs, bathed in the glow of some light from behind stood a skeleton clutching a longbow in it's bone hands. Xephos groaned. Skeletons were his least favorite creatures in all of the world, the undead archers always spawned with a poor-quality, but none the less deadly bow or cross-bow, which they were all annoyingly well practised with. They didn't even look human, they stood just under seven-feet tall, and their skulls were different from a human's or dwarf's, their brow ridges were angled downward, making them look like they were constantly glaring at you with their ethereal red pin-pricks of eyes, they had fangs, and small horns on their domed skulls. They also had some very nasty claws.

"Okay, there is a skeleton down there." warned Xephos as Honeydew came up behind him.

"Let's just rush it so it's got no time to react." huffed Honeydew. "It looks like it's standing sentry so we must be getting close."

"Okay, go!"

Xephos ran down the slope towards the skeleton, who noticed him and drew an arrow from it's quiver and aimed at him as he drew closer. At the last second Xephos ducked and side-stepped as the arrow whistled past him and bounced off Honeydew's armor. Xephos ran towards the skeleton and ducked as it slashed at his face with it's claws before Xephos brought his sword around and severed the skeleton at it's spinal cord below it's ribs. The creature fell apart with a terrific noise that could've woken the dead, but to be honest, that wouldn't be much of an improvement. Xephos stooped to pick up two of the arrows that had fallen out of the skeleton's quiver, they never really had much arrows, only four or five, and they tended to use them up.

"Blimey, you took that guy out." grinned Honeydew as he walked ahead to the light source that turned out to be a single, fresh torch on a sconce that was just before the tunnel opened into what seemed to be a very wide but shallow room, the doors to it seemed to have been knocked off of their hinges and into the corridor by something.

Suddenly from the darkness within the room three skeletons emerged. One fired and arrow the hissed past Honeydew's face where it hit the stone wall and rebounded.

"Oohh!" he screamed. "Get back!" He picked up one of the two doors and using it as a shield from the arrows, backed towards Xephos.

"There's, like, five of them!" yelled Xephos as he got behind Honeydew, peeking out from the other side of the door as arrows shot past them. Suddenly, a creeper appeared in the fray, and began to run towards them, cowering behind a door.

"Oh gods, there's a creeper as well!"

While the creeper, whose name was actually Rickard, began to hiss, one of the skeleton's arrows accidentally hit it on the back of it's head, and creeper's, who unlike skeletons, do to appreciate how difficult it is to hit a target whilst a big green phallus is in the way and all of your mates are jostling about trying to get a shot too, stopped hissing, turned around and began hissing again, this time leaping at the group of skeletons. The skeletons had no time to react before the creeper exploded, sending their bones flying across the room and putting out the torch, plunging the room into dark.

"Well I think that they're mostly dead." sighed Xephos as he stepped out from behind the door as Honeydew leant it up against the wall and lit a torch, when another three skeletons stepped out the shadows.

"Yeah, well they don't look mostly dead to me!" Honeydew yelled as he ran forwards and cut down two of them.

Xephos knocked the other's head off with the flat of his blade, which flew to the opposing wall and hit it with a resounding crack.

Xephos took Honeydew's torch and relit the one that had been put out, then stepped into the room. It was long and dark, from what he could see, Xephos thought that the walls were lined with small prison cells he looked to either side of him to the opposite ends of the long room, and swore that in the darkness he could see the small lights of spawners. A second later, several skeletons appeared in a puff of black smoke next to the spawners.

"Oh there's loads in here!" he yelled as he retreated back into the tunnel as they tried to shoot him. "And zombies too." he added when he heard one gurgling, then ran past Honeydew and grabbed the door to use as a barricade. "There's too many monsters in here, friend!"

"Look, just stop whining and bloody kill them, for Craft's sake! Were all tooled up and stuff." Honeydew ran forwards to cut down a skeleton. "Come on, get in there!"

Xephos set his jaw and put on his great-helm, gave Honeydew the thumbs up and ran at a group of skeletons blocking the exit while holding the door in front of him. He collided with the rank of skeleton, knocking them into peices, continuing his momentum he rolled over the door that now had many crushed bones beneath it an leap forward, cutting a skeleton in half before if could even grab an arrow.

Honeydew ran beside him, smashing in a zombie's head with the pommel of his sword.

"There's too many!" said Xephos as arrows bounced off his armor. The rank of skeletons in front of the spawner far to their left drew another set of arrows ready to fire.

"Come on then!" yelled Honeydew as he ran forward with Xephos beside him. The two jumped into the air as the archers released their arrows, they didn't seem to touch them as Xephos cut an archer in half length-ways. Honeydew was dual weilding with his axe, cutting through the skeletons in a savage ball of fury.

"We need to light this place up!" called Xephos as they approached the spawner.

"Don't go down, we got this!" Honeydew yelled. "This is tense! Tense as hell! It's like were in the Four Towers!"

"Let's clear some of these bastards out!"

Xephos ducked as another skeleton shot at him, the arrow narrowly missing his vision slits. "Come on then!"

Xephos drew his dirk and threw it at the skeleton, hitting it square in the head, killing it outright, the turning and slicing apart another two that attempted to sneak up on him. He looked over and saw Honeydew being forced into the tunnel again by a pair of zombies.

Xephos came at them from behind, slicing off one's head while the other was hacked in the shoulder be Honeydew, it's thick, black blood oozing across the floor as it fell.

They ran out of the tunnel where Honeydew looked to the right, seeing that another group of mobs were mobilizing around a spawner.

"Oh gods, there's more!" yelled Honeydew. "Good thing Peculier gave us this armor."

"Go and take out as many of the skeletons over there as you can." Xephos said, looking left, seeing only two remaining skeletons guarding the left spawner. "I'll take care of this spawner." he produced a torch from his pack, which he lit off of the one on the wall, nodded at Honeydew then ran forwards.

The skeletons saw him coming a long way off, shooting at him, but Xephos nimbly ducked out of their paths, dispatching one then knocking the other's head off with the torch, right as another appeared behind him from the spawner. As it was about to strike Xephos noticed it and spun around, thrusting his word at it's face, which slammed right through it, the rest of the skeleton fell away, leaving the skull hanging from Xephos's blade.

He turned to the spawner and slammed the handle of the torch through the top of the cage, it torch illuminating the area around the spawner, allowing no more skeleton to spawn from it.

"I've lit this one up!" Xephos yelled, turning to see Honeydew retreating from the onslaught of arrows and zombies. "I don't have many torches left though, do you?" he asked as he helped Honeydew to kill a zombie and an archer that had followed him into the tunnel that they used as their safe haven.

"I've got enough to get that one down there." said Honeydew, nodding at the spawner at the right, thoughly guarded by mostly skeletons.

"We've cleared this side out, let's get the other one, and there is a load of skeletons there too."

The two of them rushed out from the tunnel and took cover from the arrows behind a large counter that protruded into the room.

"Can you light that spawner up?" asked Xephos as Honeydew peered over the counter top, ducking down as an arrow shot past.

"I can get there if you can buy me time." he smiled. "Just leave some for me."

They ran out from behind the counter, Honeydew with a torch in hand shouting "Take them out! Take them out!"

Xephos was dimly aware of an arrow in his shoulder as he charged a group of the skeletal archers, slicing up as he did so, thankfully skeletons were not much problem at close range.

"Go go go!" urged Honeydew as he approached the spawner, Xephos cutting a swath for him in the archers until he threw down the torch on the spawner. Honeydew then swung his axe around and threw it at a skeleton that was sneaking up on Xephos, shattering it.

"These are going down _easily!" _yelled Xephos as he sliced open the last one with a clatter.

He looked back at the hall, which was now so covered in bones it was hard to tell where the floor was.

"Oh, my friend was have totally destroyed these guys." Xephos smiled, taking off his helmet and hanging it from his pack. He now saw that they had not entirely escaped unscathed.

Honeydew had a deep looking scratch across his jaw from a skeleton, and and arrow in his back. Although it did not seem to be bothering him.

"Are you alright, friend?" he asked. "You've got an arrow in your back."

"'S all right." Honeydew grimaced as he reached around and pulled the arrow out of his armor, which seemed to be the only thing that it had penetrated, save a small spit of dwarf blood on the tip. "Only nicked me. But what about you?"

"I think it's fine." said Xephos as he reached and pulled the arrow out of the notch in his armor, then breaking it.

"We are so pro." beamed Honeydew, looking back across the long room littered with bones and arrows as he lit another torch, slightly lightening the room more.

"We should try to salvage some of these arrows." Xephos said. "Then try to find Granny."

As though in response, a low, gutteral growl echoed across the hall from the cell directly next to where the spawner and Xephos stood.

Honeydew turned, unable to see inside of the cell.

"What was that?" he asked.

Xephos took the torch and moved closer to the cell, and through the bars of the iron door on the tiny cell was Granny Bacon, pressed up against the bars.

"My gods, It's Granny." gasped Xephos.

"Granny!" cried Honeydew running up to the cell door. "How are you!"

"Why is she making noises?" asked Xephos warily, backing away as Honeydew got closer.

Granny groaned again, sounding anything but human.

"Open the door." said Xephos, nodding at a lever next to the door. "Let her out."

Honeydew turned.

"I-Should we?" he stammered.

"Yeah."

"But what if she's-"

"It's Granny!" said Xephos is exasperation, stepping frowards and hitting the lever.

"What if she's been afflicted by the taint!" Honeydew finished as the cell door swung open outwards.

Granny Bacon, who'd been leaning hard on the door now teetered on the brink of falling over, Honeydew made no move no catch her, but she did regain he balance, although she was not as she'd been before. She was bent and hunched, he eyes empty and her skin a hue of green. She gurgled at Honeydew.

"She's making weird noises," He said as Granny began to shuffle slowly towards him. "Xephos, I'm freaking out." He began to run backwards.

"I'm freaking out as well." said Xephos, who's voice attracted Granny's attention, and began to stumble towards Xephos, who followed Honeydew in backing towards the other side of the room.

"Look at her! Look at her!" Honeydew cried as the two walked backwards side by side, Granny following. "What's going on?"

"I don't know!" screamed Xephos.

"See I told you!" shouted Honeydew. "I bloody told you: "What if there's something wrong with her?". Look at her!"

"What do we do?" asked Xephos as the two of them ran from Granny to the middle of the hall where the counter made a bottle-neck opposite another tunnel that presumably led out from the hall.

"Get the doors and barricade her over there!" said Honeydew, sprinting over to the tunnel they had entered through, grabbing the door Xephos used as a barricade while Xephos picked up the other one.

They raced back to the bottle-neck where Granny was approaching slowly but steadily, groaning again.

"Oh gods!" yelled Honeydew as he and Xephos laid the doors down length-ways, using some nearby bones to prop them up.

"There we go, there we go!" said Honeydew, standing back to look at the frankly pathetic barricade as Granny approached.

"So what do we do, are we supposed to lock her in or something?" asked Xephos as Granny approached, he stepped back hurridly.

"We can figure that out now, don't worry though," assured Honeydew. "she'll never be able to get through the barricade-"

Granny walked right up to the barricade and deftly knocked it over.

"Oh no she's breaking through, she's breaking through!" wailed Honeydew sprinting to the back of the room.

"Oh Jebus!" Xephos yelled as he followed, Granny began drooling.

Honeydew and Xephos were at the back of the room and Granny was approaching, backed up against the cell door of a cage.

"Oh gods, were' backed up!" yelled Xephos, looking for a way out as Granny drew closer. "We're up against a wall!"

Honeydew turned and pulled on the cell door's lever, opening it and running into the small room that was "standing room only".

"Get in the cell!" he yelled to Xephos. "Quick!"

Xephos looked back and saw Granny edging closer.

"No, we can't! We can't!" he yelled as he ran to the opposite corner of the room, but granny kept going for Honeydew, inside the cell. "It locks from the outside!"

Granny was only a few feet from the cell now.

"Oh, god's she's coming for you..."

"Shhh..." whispered Honeydew as he backed as far as he could into the tiny cell, Granny was close enough that he could reach out and touch her, and he could smell her rancid breath. She raised her hand and pulled down on the lever, shutting him in.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" Honeydew wailed, as Granny turned to Xephos. "I'm in the dark, Xephos!"

"And now she's coming for me!" Xephos squealed, running back towards the other side of the room.

"What's goin' on?" Honeydew asked.

"Are we just going to kite her around, or can we actually try to get her in a cell?" Xephos asked, and then did a u-turn and ran a wide turn around Granny, whose loose skin was mottled grey in the torchlight. "I'm terrified."

"I'm locked in Xephos!" Honeydew called as Xephos ran up to his cell.

"I'll get you out, she locked you up." Xephos pulled the lever and stepped out of the way as the door swung open. "Come out here."

"Ah, okay." Honeydew got out of the cell, but as he looked over Xephos's shoulder, he could see Granny was sneaking up. "Maybe we should talk to her?" He pushed Xephos aside as Granny came towards him again.

"Granny?" he asked.

Granny groaned.

"She's just moaning and groaning." stammered Xephos as she got closer to Honeydew.

"Is everything okay?" he asked as she got closer, then she lashed out and struck Honeydew across the face with surprising speed and strength.

"Ow!" yelled Honeydew, ducking out of the way of another punch and running over to Xephos. "She's hitting me! She's hitting me!"

"I think we might just have to fight back." said Xephos as Granny continued to follow them.

"What's she got?" asked Honeydew, seeing something in Granny Bacon's hand.

"Is that bacon?" said Honeydew as Xephos circled around behind her. "She's hitting me with bacon, Xephos."

"Hit her, see if you can knock her out of her trance." said Xephos, who was getting sick of this.

"Okay, okay. Oh gods, forgive me for doing this." Honeydew said as She started to follow Xephos.

"Do it!" Xephos yelled.

Honeydew ran up behind he and punched her in the back out the head with a reasonable amount of force. All of a sudden, as though Honeydew's punch had been the only thing holding her back, Granny Bacon's face fell onto the ground with a meaty splat, leaving only the flesh beneath her skin, turned strangely green, intact.

"Uhh!" Xephos recoiled. "Oh my gods!"

"AAAAHHHHHH!" screamed Honeydew. "OH MY GODS!" he calmed down slightly. "That, that is not good..."

Granny rounded on Honeydew, her bottom jaw agape, blood trickling from it.

"That is very bad news indeed." agreed Xephos as Zombie Granny turned to him, her red eyes lidless and glaring, the muscles on her face clearly working as she screamed at him.

"Uhhh..." stammered Xephos.

"Oh my gods!" yelled Honeydew as he ran for the other side of the barricade followed by Xephos. After a few seconds of bewilderment, Granny seemed to realise that her quarry were trying to escape her, she turned much more quickly that before and ran at Honeydew, who was feebly trying to re-erect the pitiful barricade.

"Should we leave her?" said Xephos as they ran backwards, followed by the undead Granny Bacon, who jumped and cleared the barricade. "Is there any chance of her turning back? She's mad now!"

Honeydew was in hysterics as they ran from Granny, who was roaring after them, running up and jumping at Honeydew, pinning him down.

"Ahhh! She's gone mad! She's gone mad! She's gonna kill me!" Granny was poised to bite at her former lover, but Xephos drew his sword and slashed at her side, knocking her off of Honeydew long enough for him to rise, and spilling her entrails across the her front, but it could take more than that to kill the undead. More of her skin was beginning to slid off her, making her less and less recognisable

"Oh gods kill her! Kill her!" squealed Honeydew as she got back to her feet and ran at Xephos, Honeydew circling round behind. "Oh gods I'm sorry!" Honeydew ran behind her and impaled her on his sword. "Oh gods!" he said as she moaned a few time before sighing in an almost human manner, then she crumbled into a pile of dust at Honeydew's feet, all save her torn clothes that fell to the floor, spilling many foodstuffs from the pockets onto the ground, the only thing that disturbed the small pile of ash were small tear drops that fell from Honeydew's eyes as he looked at where Granny had once been.

"There we go." sighed Xephos, taking off his helmet and sheathing his sword. "She's dead."

"Oh gods!" cried Honeydew, collapsing to his knees in front of the remains of Granny. "Oh..." he whispered, picking up some meat that had fallen out of one of Granny's pockets. "...bacon."

Xephos left Honeydew for a few minutes to gather his thoughts. He wandered the room picking up dropped arrows wherever they littered the floor, by the time he'd finished salvaging as mush arrows and quarrels as he could he had a good two stacks of each. He returned to Honeydew, who seemed to be gently placing Granny's dust into a small bag.

"I'll bury her on the surface." he said, his voice as fragile as the dust he was gathering. "Someplace nice and peaceful."

"She'd have like that."

"Yeah..."

"I've found us some more arrows and bolts." Xephos said, dropping the latter next to Honeydew, thew were poorly made, but bad arrows are better than no arrows.

"Oh my goodness." Xephos breathed in. "That was...epic."

"Oh god's..." Honeydew tied up the bag and dropped it into his own one. "What have we done?"

"I'm not sure what we've done, but I feel guilty for doing it."

"We _murdered_ her. In cold blood."

"I don't know," Xephos looked at the ceiling. "she was a zombie. We sort of had to kill her, but she was your lover. I'm sorry friend."

"Oh well, life goes on." said Honeydew, getting to his feet. Xephos saw what he was doing. He was using his "Hide-our-emotions-inside-of-ourselves" tactic. Xephos had learnt from experience not to disturb him when he was like this, else he would just get angry.

"Oh my gods that was horrifying!" Honeydew sighed in exasperation as he got up.

"Where did we come in here, anyway?" asked Xephos. "I've completely lost track of what we were doing."

"Well we came here to save Granny, and instead we killed her... so what we do next is anybody's guess."

"There's still a portal to destroy." said Xephos standing and walking to the middle of the hall where the stone counter jutted out, across from which was a wide tunnel that appeared to slope upwards into dark.

"There's something up here... I think." said Honeydew as he started past Xephos up into the narrowing passage. He stopped and turned to Xephos as it started to press into single file-only room. "Do you-do you want to go ahead, friend?" he stuttered.

"Well I don't have any torches left." Xephos said as he began to ascend anyway past Honeydew when the stairs began to double back, heading upwards. "We should probably go and pick up those ones we were throwing down to de-activate the spawners."

"I think that I also saw some coal down there..." agreed Honeydew, turning and leading the way back to the hall, leaving Xephos behind. "Back in the big room."

"Oh right?" said Xephos as he heard Honeydew enter the room and began to follow. He suddenlt heard Honeydew's footsteps rapidly approaching as he was just about to head into the hall.

"Okay never mind!" Honeydew said. "Never mind! Let's go-No, no, no, no, no, this way!" he told Xephos, leading him back up to the narrow stairway.

"What's down there?" asked Xephos suspiciously.

"Let's go up here?" Honeydew was trying to move Xephos along as quickly as possible. "There may've been two creepers down there." the dwarf admitted.

"I don't have any torches, you're going to have to lead the way." said Xephos quickly, suddenly very eager to be off.

"Oh, okay!" Honeydew quickly lit a torch and set off up the switch-back stairs.

"Two creepers?" asked Xephos as he looked back.

The two of them followed the stairs till they stopped and the tunnel led right. They followed this path for a while until the reached a closed door. Honeydew tested the handle to find that it wasn't locked, and led into a small room with a large hole in one corner that was fenced off and had a waterfall running into it, and in the other corner another wooden door stood.

"What the-" started Honeydew before Xephos pushed past him to the hole in the opposite right corner, where a sign hung from the fence.

Xephos read the sign as the water that fell from the ceiling splashed droplets into his face.

"Danger, deep mine excavation, long drops." The sign looked ancient, as did the drop that the water fell into, it was long, and Xephos couldn't see the bottom.

"Oh gods." said Honeydew, looking over to the door. "There's a door over here, though." he headed over and opened it, Xephos following him into the pre-lit room on the other side, where Honeydew was staring at something to his left.

Xephos entered the room to see what appeared to be a small office or study, the desk where Honeydew was staring was lit by one candle and sitting there, quill in hand was, undoubtably, Reverend John from Terrorvale.

"Uhh..." said Xephos.

"Err..." mumbled Honeydew.

"Ah!" Xephos yelped as he and Honeydew pushed back through the door, where they started to laugh hysterically.

"Umm?" said Honeydew without a clue what their next course of action should be.

Xephos walked back towards the door and pushed it open to poke his head through. John was on his feet, and reaching for his golden cerimonial sword, the same one by the look of it that he'd attacked Xephos with in his Terrorvale crypt.

"Hello?" he asked to the reverend.

"The master promises an eternity." he mumbled at Xephos.

"He doesn't look as well as he did the last time we saw him." Xephos said back to Honeydew. And indeed, Reverend John looked a mess. His black priest robes were torn and faded, a massive rip was through the center where Honeydew had stabbed him months ago, running through to the other side. His skin was also a greener tinge and his eyes squinty, Also half of his jaw was missing, his blood black and thick was slowly weeping from it, accompanied by his tongue lolling out of the side, giving him a strange lisp.

"No, he doesn't look as good." said Honeydew. "Well, we did kill him. Um..."

John drew his sword and began to walk towards Xephos.

"He's looking at me, Honeydew." Xephos warned as he backed into the room, John stepping into the doorway. Honeydew raised the torch.

"You still live?" John asked, cocking his head.

"Yep!" yipped Xephos as John stepped closer, visibly salivating.

"What are we going to..." said Honeydew. "...we're just going to have to kill him aren't we?"

John seemed to hear this, and did not seem to like it either.

"Embrace the dark!" John yelled as he ran at Xephos and slashed at him with his sword. Xephos blocked it with ease as Reverend John stepped back.

"Oh gods!" he yelled as Johns blade slid off his. "Yeah, he's attacking me."

John ran, albeit with a slight limp, back through the door.

"He's saying "Embrace the dark."." Xephos started after John and Honeydew followed.

The entered the room just in time to see the corner of John's robe disappear down a tunnel to the right.

"After him!" Honeydew bellowed, loading his crossbow as they ran to the tunnel, where John was crouching in wait. He leapt out at them and gave two wild slashes, one nicking Xephos on his jaw, giving him a shallow cut, the other one he ducked under as Honeydew shot a bolt that thudded into John's arm, pinning it to his torso. John decided that maybe it was a good time to run, and

"We're killing everyone, Xephos." Honeydew sighed as he pushed past him to take point, reloading and pulling out his blade. "He's off!" he yelled as they followed John down the lit tunnel. "He's off! Come back! Come back, you!"

John had disappeared from sight, but still they followed the tunnel as it turned and twisted, when suddenly Honeydew collapsed.

"Woah!" he moaned from the tunnel floor.

"What's wrong friend?" asked Xephos as Honeydew covered his ears and screwed his eyes shut.

"World hole Xephos! World hole!" he screamed, his deep voice echoing back through the tunnel.

"It's alright!" Xephos said, stepping over Honeydew, holding aloft his sword to come between him and John. "Israphel does those."

Honeydew suddenly went silent.

"Friend?" asked Xephos looking back.

Honeydew suddenly came to consiusness, opening his eyes and looking up at his friend.

"How long?" he asked.

"Seconds."

"Really?"

"I think we're getting better at keeping them at bay now."

"Or he's getting weaker."

"Maybe both." said Xephos handing back Honeydew his crossbow, thankfully still loaded. "We should hurry though, we don't want John to get away, the way I see it, Israphel's magic is weakened by something nearby, he must want for John to get away quite a lot if he's going to use a world hole on _only one_ of us. So I suggest we start running."

"Good idea." agreed Honeydew, standing. "Here we go."

Xephos turned to follow after the Reverend, but the hallway ahead was as dark as a whale's belly.

"I don't have torches..."

Honeydew turned around and ran a few steps, wrenching a torch off of the wall and pushing past Xephos. "I'm back, I'm back!"

Honeydew led the way down the tunnel until it suddenly dropped into a stairway, they began to descend, but John had not run far during their set back, he'd been skulking in the shadows beyond their sight, and was now waiting at the bottom of the stairs. As Honeydew came down he jumped forwards, holding his sword awkwardly, jabbing Honeydew, but his sword, clearly not made for real warfare, bounced off the plate beneath the green surcoat, but not after leaving a tear in it.

"Ooh!" screamed Honeydew as he stepped back in surprise, John running back into the dark. "Oh wait, I think he's only got a crappy sword, so we might be all right."

"Gods what is he doing with these hit-and-run tactics?" asked Xephos.

They followed after John and began gaining on him, Honeydew shot a bolt after him which hit the Reverend in the back, but seeing as he was undead it would take more than that to stop him.

Suddenly John disappeared around a corner, Honeydew sped up and raced around it, when John, who was waiting by in front of a door that exited the tunnel, threw his sword at him. It spun through the air and hit Honeydew right between the eyes. But thankfully, John wasn't good with swords, and it hit Honeydew butt first, knocking him back around the corner looking dazed.

"Woah! Oh, ya bugger!" he swore as they heard the door slam shut. "Come 'ere! Come 'ere!" Honeydew got to his feet and headed back towards the wooden door.

"He ambushed you!" stated Xephos, looking at the sword. "But he threw his sword on the ground, so he's unarmed."

"This'll be easy!" said Honeydew, sheathing his blade and putting away his crossbow haughtily before approaching the door. "I'll make short work of him."

As Honeydew reached for the door, it opened very quickly and before Honeydew could react John lashed out at him from the other side, he appeared to be holding a piece of paper in his long dirty nails, the latter scratched across Honeydew's forearm when he held it up to block. John then quickly shut the door again.

"He doesn't have a sword, but he does have a very nasty piece of paper, and he's giving me paper cuts with it." Honeydew grimaced. "Which is probably more dangerous than that sword."

"Go and take him out then." urged Xephos. "Also, what is in that room?"

"Right, ya bastard, come 'ere!" growled Honeydew, kicking the door open with so much force that it sent John sprawling across the ground. "Gimme that piece o' paper! Come on!"

As John went to stand up Honeydew grabbed his head with both hands and twisted, breaking his neck. Reverend John fell to the floor dead for the second and hopefully last time. Honeydew bent and picked up the small piece of paper crumpled in John's hand.

"I've got it!" he yelled. "He's dead."

"Uhh..." Xephos groaned as he entered the room. "Honeydew, have you even bothered to look around yet?"

As Honeydew looked up he realised where they were.

They were in a small rectangular room, on the left side of the room there were the ruins of a long dead portal frame similar to the one they found in the mine shaft, but at the other end, there was a huge grotesquely carved new frame, it's purple light illuminating the room in a sickly hue. But the strange thing was the entire room was sand, the walls, the floor, sand like in the Cave Of Terror all of those days ago, banked up against the walls like it was thrown forth by the portals, there were also strange twisted cacti growing in the portal light, dark green and with more spikes than a battalion of pikemen.

"We are in a horrible room, here." said Xephos.

"There's a portal there." Honeydew walked towards it, stuffing the now forgotten piece of paper in his pocket. "That one isn't working. But the _other_ one _is_ working!"

"Aah yeah... that one might be the one that Peculier's Father destroyed." Xephos glanced back at the broken frame as he walked towards the throbbing light within the other. "So what do we do with this one?"

"I think that we've got to destroy it, don't we?" said Honeydew as he followed his friend towards the portal, drawing his diamond pick. "Not try to go through it."

"Not try go through it? Okay: destroy it."

"This is what Knight Peculier taught us, Xephos." Honeydew began to slowly hack away at the side of the portal frame, which was stylized similarly to Lysander's Altar, chipping off flakes of obsidian from the twisting heads slowly.

"Can I see that piece of paper you found, friend?" asked Xephos after a while.

Honeydew reached into his pocket and fished out the paper, handing it to Xephos. "I didn't even have a look yet."

Xephos took the paper and unfolded the sad crumpled thing, the size of Xephos's hand. It seemed to only be a fragment of a much larger piece of paper, it's edges were harshly ripped. But it seemed to be a piece of a map or something similar, it was mostly unmarked, portraying a large flat land, only marked by the occasional hill, and a small river that snaked cross one of the ripped corners.

"I think it's a map..." Xephos said.

"A map? A map of what?" asked Honeydew, still hammering at the frame, about halfway through one of the arms.

"I'm not even sure if it's a map, let alone where it leads."

"It's useless then, get rid of it."

"No...I think it may be important."

Honeydew looked up. "How?"

"Well, John didn't have anything other than this on him, did he?" Xephos looked over at the Reverend's body.

"I don't think so."

"And if Israphel wanted to try and stop us so John could get away, it's either because he had something important, or knew something, which is unlikely, seeing as he stayed behind when he should have run away."

"I suppose you are right there." agreed Honeydew. "But how important could an old map be?"

"We should ask Peculier if he knows when we see him next."

"So long as we can sleep first, shit I'm tired."

"I think we deserve a rest soon." Xephos nodded.

After a moment of silence that was broken by Honeydew's cracking of the pickaxe on the obsidian portal frame.

"Okay, nearly there, nearly there." sighed Honeydew as his muscles began to grow weary, but there was only a few inches of obsidian left. "Watch my back incase anyone else we've previously met before is turned undead and is gonna attack us." he said to Xephos, who drew his sword and faced the door.

"Oh god's what if Daisy's turned!" yelled Honeydew as he came to the realisation that she just might well be. He gave the portal one last whack and the side he was hacking at ruptured and like before the light within the portal retreated with what seemed to be a woeful sigh, and suddenly leaving the room in darkness.

"Don't think about that." advised Xephos as Honeydew lit a torch that gave the room a much more natural lighting.

"Oh gods, oh gods..." Honeydew moaned as he looked about for an exit.

"What'd be the best thing to do now, in order to get out?" asked Xephos. "We're at the bottom of this bloody castle in the middle of nowhere. How deep do you reckon we are? Do you think we could just dig up?" Xephos though that they must be close to the surface, because they hadn't really gone very deep, and going back through the castle wasn't a very ideal route.

Xephos thought on it. "Also, sand. I don't know if you've noticed this, but why is this room made of sand, the walls are sand, the floor is sand, the roof is sandstone..."

"And there was sand..." said Honeydew as Xephos pulled the Dwarf's shovel out of his pack and began to dig out one of the walls by the portal frame. "By the Yogcave. R.I.P, never forget. It will live on in my heart. There was sand there, and there's sand here..."

Xephos grunted in approval as he struck the wall with is shovel and dug out a chunk of sand, causing part of the wall to become unstable. A waterfall of sand flooded into the room, raising the floor to ankle height where Xephos stood.

"I think we might be able to dig up to the surface." Thankfully, though this made the digging easier, and soon the ceiling ended and as the last of the sand fell past Xephos moonlight fell through the little rabbit hole that he'd dug out of the portal room. "Oh yeah it's right there, gods loom how close we are! We're nearly right at the surface already, hopefully there are no creepers up there." said Xephos pointing out of the small hole to the outside.

"Well, you've just jinxed yourself now, haven't you?" said Honeydew looking at their way out.

The sand tunnel was steeply angled and the exit was about ten yards away from Xephos, he reached out and began to climb out of the miserably small hole, eventually reaching the surface and looking about.

"Here we are!" he said with satisfaction.

"You're doomed." yelled Honeydew said he began to follow.

Xephos helped him out of the hole and Honeydew saw that they were right outside of Mistral City by the moat, specifically near the whirlpool by Jasper's House, that was now no more than smoldering embers. The hole had come up by the riverbank, where they could see the city was still burning, the ash had settled and covered Mistral in a blanket for it's last sleep.

"Oh right, look where we are!" exclaimed Xephos as he and Honeydew swept the sand off of themselves.

"The bright lights of Mistral City." said Honeydew sarcastically.

"Oh man, poor old Mistral." Xephos followed Honeydew towards the moat there part of the City Wall had fallen into the shallows, making a convenient bridge up to the outskirts.

"By the way, Xephos," Honeydew spoke up as they walked into the shallow water before the fallen wall. "I don't know if you've noticed, but Fumblemore's Tower, it's gone. It's gone, I can't see it." He looked up at the place where it had once been, pointing for Xephos. "Not like, fallen gone, but vanished gone. Unless I'm blind, or just stupid."

This was true, Xephos hadn't seen any wreckage of the Tower at all, not in the City or in the sky. It was just...gone.

"Oh, right?" Xephos looked at the island that used to have the tree-bridge connecting it, but now the tree had fallen to land atop Snozzi's House Of Adult Entertainment And Pleasure.

"So either he's blown himself up, or it's disappeared like Dalaran." said Honeydew in a mysterious tone. He referred to Dalaran, the lost city of the Elves, the elves had once been a race of spell-casters and arches like no others, but they were snooty and arrogant, and didn't enjoy the company of other races, neither did any of the others. Especially the dwarves. So one day the elves decided to all head back to their home land; the huge City-Nation of Dalaran. No one is quite certain what happened next, but nobody saw any more elves. People were sent to Dalaran to see what had become of them, but all that they found was a huge crater in the earth, Some theorised that the elves had teleported themselves to some distant land, others that they had accidentally (or purposefully) blown themselves to dust, but no one tried to find out because nobody really cared.

"Yeah, it's weird." agreed Xephos as he started up the sloping wall. "But where was it that Old-I mean _Knight_ Peculier said we were supposed to go?"

"Verigan's...Fist?" queried Honeydew as he began to follow Xephos, but a zombie leapt at him from behind him. Honeydew punched it aside as though it were only a minor inconvenience before drawing his sword.

"No, no, remember he said; "Take the back road out of town."?" corrected Xephos as he waited for Honeydew to kill the zombie.

"The back road..." mused Honeydew, becoming distracted and allowing the zombie to thrash him across the chest, doing no damage except annoying Honeydew.

"Ow! You little shit, come 'ere!" he growled, swinging at the zombie, but it continually ducked out of his attacks. Xephos eventually got tired of this and drew an arrow from his recently refilled quiver and nocking it into his bow, taking a moment to aim before letting it loose, striking the zombie in behind the ear, sinking deep into it's brain.

"Ah! That one counts as mine!" shouted Honeydew. "Sometimes I swear that you have Elf blood in you."

"You didn't do a very good job, did you?" said Xephos, eminating smugness.

"No, I suppose not." answered Honeydew glumly.

Xephos began laughing as he walked backwards up the wall, but he slipped and ended up sliding back down the wall.

"Oh, well good effort there, mate. Good effort." laughed Honeydew, happy that the universe had balanced itself out again. "Well done."

"I was looking around to see where we were." protested Xephos as he struggled in the shallows like a turtle on it's back.

"You've outdone yourself." Honeydew chuckled as he reached out and gave Xephos an arm up.

They reached the top of the wall and stood once again within the ruins of the City, leaving a trail of footprints in the ashes as they walked forwards.

"Why is there water here?" asked Xephos, staring at a large puddle of grey water that surrounded a house that appeared to be what was once Jasper's house, but was now a frame of charcoal, what appeared to be Jasper's day-old bath water had splashed down through the house and now formed a small lake in the otherwise desolate landscape of grey. "What was this area here?"

"Spider." informed Honeydew, loading his crossbow as Xephos ran towards the black arachnid that had emerged from one of the fountains near Jasper's house, with his in hand sword. He stabbed it twice before jumping aside to let Honeydew finish it with a bolt to the head.

"I think this was Jasper's House, wasn't it?" asked Xephos as he walked towards the husk.

"This must be Jasper's bath water that's flooded out of his hot-tub."

"And then there's his airship!" remembered Honeydew running towards the broken airship that lay between Duke Smithy and the Sports Field.

"Do you reckon that that was the airship that was over at Jasper's house?" asked Xephos, now confused. "So is Jasper good or bad? Was _Lysander_ actually the bad one? I don't know."

"Oh gods..." sighed Honeydew sadly, looking up at the night sky, probably the same night sky as the one they saw before entering the Castle. "...I don't know anymore!"

"Were we tricked by Israphel?" asked Xephos as he began to walk towards Granny Bacon's Tea Shoppe. The flames that had covered the buildings were now signifigantly lower, most of the houses and shops were enterable, but there would be nothing in them, not now.

"Granny was captured and turned into a zombie," Honeydew began to list.

"Fumblemore and Father Braeburn are missing."

"Turns out Lysander was plotting all along, and was a cultist. And Reverend John was undead, well, he never died, but we gave him a second death."

"Maybe we have to get into the habit of burning and salting the bodies supernatural like." mused Xephos as they began to walk down the side street towards Granny's old shop.

"Look." he said as they stood before where the door would once have been, but now all of the walls where gone, and the only thing in the shoppe that had survived was the counter and part of the back room, the wall hiding which had caved in since they last visited. ""Granny Bacon's Greasy Spoon Tea Shoppe."." Xephos read as he walked into the ruins, looking for anything in the back room that might be of value.

"Oh gods Xephos! Granny Bacon!" Honeydew suddenly cried out as he followed Xephos into the the back room where there turned out to be nothing other than some unspoiled cake under a steel lid on a cake-stand.

"She's never coming back, Honeydew..." whispered Xephos, taking a handful of his cake and eating it too.

"Buahaha-omnomnom-buahaha-omnomnom- buahaha..." Honeydew cried inbetween absolutely stuffing himself with cake, finishing the whole thing.

While he was at that, Xephos walked around to the back of the tea shoppe where water was streaming across the floor and he could hear water gurgling. He rounded the corner to see it was from a burst pipe coming out of a small unspecified cubical-like structure.

"Why is this water here?" he wondered aloud, noticing the door of the small room was still intact, Honeydew, out of curiosity came after him as Xephos opened the door, where a tone plaque was hanging from the door.

"Oh." he said.

"What?" asked Honeydew who couldn't see the sign, Xephos suddenly walked back into the tea shoppe and out of the water very quickly.

""Outhouse, please wash your hands and flush."." recited Xephos, not having to turn to see the look on Honeydew's face.

"Oh gods!" cried Honeydew running after Xephos. "I'm swimming in other people's feculence, Xephos." Even though the water seemed pretty damned clean.

"Uhg, yuck." mumble Xephos as he began to walk towards the lumber works, where he assumed the back-road would be."

"Which way was the back road out of town?" he asked as they exited Victoria Street began through the grave yard. "This way?"

"Yeah, I think so." said Honeydew, confirming Xephos's first thoughts.

"Yeah because we came in through the north side, and west is this way, so this must be the way surely."

"Though the graveyard." agreed Xephos as a cow, probably the one that Honeydew hit off of the sports court, ran past on fire, mooing madly.

"Oh gods! The cow's on fire." cried Honeydew as the cow disappeared around the side of The Church Of The Holy Apple.

They continued to the lumber works, where Xephos showed Honeydew the sign on the notice board about how Mrs Miggles had found her cat and gone to Icaria.

"Icaria? What is Icaria?" asked Honeydew.

"I don't know, I think that was where Father Braeburn said that he was going, though. Maybe it's our next destination."

"Maybe..." wondered Honeydew a he ran underneath the archway on the lumber yard. "Ah! Here it is! Here we go over here!" he shouted, spotting the back road.

"Oh right." said Xephos as he followed to where the back road, a bridge, arched over a canal or something and out towards where the giant rock skull was.

"Look at this, this looks like the back road." Honeydew led the way up the bridge and through a large tunnel out to the Skull Pass. "Oh, and there's the skull." said Honeydew as the exited the tunnel and walked along the path that led to the viewing platform where they stopped for a moment.

"There's the skull..." breathed Xephos, staring at the Skull intenetly.

"Yes... the skull." puffed Honeydew. "Did I mention that it looks like a Skeletal Arches skull and not a regular skull, i realised down in the castle-"

"The skull...with Israphel inside it."

"Wha-Woah, woah woah..." yelled Honeydew looking over at the skull.

Standing in the mouth of the horrible effigy was and even more terrible creature. While it was to dark to make out his face, it was most deffinitely Israphel. His face, pale and white as a cold winter's snow peered back at them, his eyes red and burning like angry coals behind slits glowed with nothing but hate. In his hand he seemed to hold a bow, but as Xephos reached for his, he did not draw, instead he disappeared into the mouth of the beats in a whirl of his black cloak.

"What..." stammered Honeydew.

"Do we chase?" asked Xephos.

"Of course we chase, Xephos, of course we chase!" Honeydew yelled we must saaaaaave Daaaaisy!" Honeydew chortled as he ran forwards.

"Wait, friend!" yelled Xephos, grabbing his friend by the arm, the strong, tall dwarf pushed to get past. "No! It's just what he wants!" Xephos strained but managed to push his friend back.

"We've got to get after him!" protested Honeydew. "He could have Daisy and Peculier."

"It's obviously a trap." Xephos gestured to the cave. "Peculier is a day gone, he would have been long gone by now, Israphel is trying to lure us in."

"But we can kill him!"

"Not like this! our aromor ins riddled with holes now, we're tired, it's dark, and he has whatever allies he can conjour. We should wait until morning."

"What, sleep?"

"We should take turns while the other keeps watch."

Honeydew finally began to see the sense in the idea.

"Right." he said, beginning to walk towards some trees that would hide them well. "I'll take first watch, I'm not tired."

"My thanks, friend." yawned Xephos, sitting down with his back to the tree. "I'll keep my gear on incase we need to get out quickly." He shut his eyes and after a few seconds he stared to snore quietly.

"You sleep friend." Honeydew then began to yawn too. "I'll just sit down too...to give my legs a rest." Honeydew sat down on the other side of the tree and leant his head against it. After only a few short seconds though, he too was snoring, snoring loud enough that it echoed out into the night.


	12. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter12

Chapter 12: Beyond Skull Pass.

They were rudely awoken day shafts of dawn light peeking over the top of Skull Pass, lighting up the demon skull a most amusing shade of pink. Xephos knew the moment he was awake that his friend had dozed off in his watch, he could not remember waking up for his watch, meaning they'd been sitting ducks the whole night.

He stood groggily and looked about for Honeydew, he felt his panic rising when he could not be found, but soon he heard the sound of loud snoring from behind the tree.

Xephos rounded the corner and saw Honeydew sitting at the foot of the tree with his mouth open, snoring. He prodded him with the toe of his boot.

"Wake up, we're back in the waking world!" Xephos said as Honeydew after some brief protest opened this eyes.

"Uurgh," he moaned, looking up at the sun. "It's been a while." he said sarcastically. "We started to sleep at around midnight and it's maybe seven o' clock in the morning, now?"

"We slept more than we should've!" scolded Xephos. "What happened to taking shifts at watching?"

"Uhh... What do you mean? We did take watches..."

"How come I don't remember them, then?"

"You were probably so tired that you forgot." lied Honeydew. "In fact, I do not remember being woken for my second shift, so technically, it's _your_ fault we over slept."

"_My_ fault?" asked Xephos doubtably

"You most likely fell asleep on the job."

Xephos just stared at Honeydew long and hard, and the dwarf knew he was beaten.

"Or... Maybe I did fall asleep."

Xephos smiled at this, then turned and walked towards Skull Pass, Honeydew sleepily got to his feet and followed after him.

The morning was bright and cold, Honeydew noticed as he wiped a loop of half frozen drool from his beard. The grass was covered in a white frost that crunched beneath his feet as he followed Xephos towards the path that led to the tongue of the Skull, slick and wet with frost.

"We're outside of Skull Pass." declared Honeydew as they stood before the forked tongue that slithered from the skulls sharp-toothed mouth. "It's a spooky place." His breath clouded before him as he spoke. "Well, it's a giant skull."

"I think we're quite well prepared, though." said Xephos, pulling a torch from his bag and a sword from his scabbard. "I've got a few torches that I salvaged from the ruins." He looked quietly up at the massive demonic skull.

"I've got loads of 'em." Honeydew reached into a pouch on his bag and spilled dozens of torches onto the slippery cobblestone path. "Look at all of these torches."

"We're gonna need those!" protested Xephos, Honeydew obediently stooped and picked the torches up. "What kind of thing do you think we're get? A long, dark tunnel? Is there gonna be lava?"

"I think, well, Israphel walked in there, didn't he? But that was ages ago, so god knows where he is now."

"No." agreed Xephos.

"He's probably miles away."

They both looked up at the dark mouth that the tongue path stemmed from.

"Do you want to go first?" Xephos asked, gesturing ahead. The sun had risen higher and the skull had turned from pink to golden, the frost melting to dew and trickling down the face.

"Well maybe..."

Xephos sighed.

"Let's just go. Come on now." he stepped onto the tongue, wet with sunlight and started to walk into the mouth of the skull followed by Honeydew. "Get your sword ready."

Honeydew lit a torch and walked ahead of Xephos and beneath the fangs of golden fangs of the skeleton and were swallowed. In the illumination of the torchlight, there was a wall of darkness of the mouth ahead, as Honeydew and Xephos walked towards it, they saw that is was a wall of solid obsidian, making the throat seem deeper than it was.

"What is this?" asked Xephos.

"More obsidian." stated Honeydew, tapping at it and listening with his ear to the wall. "Israphel may have sealed the way, it could take days to mine through. Look about first to see if there is a way through, this stuff looks like it's been here a while."

"Alright." Xephos agreed.

Lighting his own torch off of Honeydew's, Xephos ventured to the back of the mouth, and nearly missed a smooth waist high mole in the solid wall, set about two yards into the floor.

"There's a tunnel here!" he called back to Honeydew, who came running.

"I got me sword." he said as he lowered himself into the tunnel, followed by Xephos. The tunnel was rather short, after only few yards it opened into what seemed to be the hollowed out inside of the skull, there was a set of wooden switchback-stairs zig-zagging up to the the top of the cranium.

"What's this?" asked Xephos, looking up at the surprisingly well-lit inside of the skull. The stairs had a sort of "added on" look to them, they were crudely bolted to the walls as though in a hurry, and on the back wall, just before where the tunnel emerged, there was an oddly stylish sandwich board alluringly painted and covered is swirling red letters. An arm reached up out of the top of the sign at around Honeydew's belly hight. The sign said:

_You must_

_be at least this tall_

_to ride!_

_For your safety_

_keep your arms_

_and legs inside_

_the ride!_

Honeydew read this aloud in a disbelieving tone.

"Ahh...Okay..." said Xephos as he hesitantly started up the stair to his right, which before the first switchback had another sign reading:

_This way to_

_FUN!_

Honeydew followed and also read this.

"Is this like a fair or something?" he asked.

"I don't know, maybe." Xephos began to climb the stairs again and past another sign.

"What is this madness?" asked Honeydew as he followed past the sign that read: "Keep going!"

"Let's go!" Xephos continued up the steps and rounded the next set of stairs where suddenly something very dark and even more hairy leapt out at him.

"Aahh!" cried Xephos as he teetered backwards away from the gorilla, when suddenly the foot he put backwards met nothing but air and he started to fall, when the gorilla reached out and pulled him back onto the platform.

"Get your paws off of me, you damn dirty ape!" Xephos yelled.

The gorilla drew back

"Whoah!" cried Honeydew, as he followed. "What's going on?"

"Uhh..." started Xephos. "Hello?"

"Umm..." murmured Honeydew.

The gorilla, a smallish back beast with a dark face and a silver back gave a cooing noise and clapped it's hands.

"Is it a guy in a gorilla suit?" asked Honeydew as the ape raced up the stairs and waited for them at the next landing chattering excitedly.

"Maybe..." said Xephos. "Hi!" he called up to the gorilla. "Where are you off to?"

The gorilla stood on his back legs and beat his chest and chattered some more, and disappeared from sight at the top of the landing.

"Follow him!" Xephos yelled and started after him up the last stairway.

They reached the top of the stairs and saw that instead of a doorway there was what seemed to be a smooth wooden tunnel-slide with water flowing through it, they arrived just in time to see the gorilla fall off a drop at the end of the slide.

"Oh gods!" Xephos exclaimed in alarm. "Is this like a water slide or something?"

"Yeah..." agreed Honeydew.

"You first." Xephos offered.

"Okay..." Honeydew edged towards the slide, and seeing as there was no other way down, jumped in.

"Oooo!" he screamed as he slid quickly down the smooth wood, made slippery by the water being pumped up to the top. After a the immediate steep drop, the slide leveled out and there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Honeydew swiftly slid out between two stone stalactites either side of the tunnel in a spray of water into the daylight.

Honeydew only had a few seconds to look about, but as he did, he saw many colourful tents and sheds, a stage, a wooden roller-coaster and something big and grey with wooden rooftops in the background.

"What the chri-" he began before the slide ended and dropped the dwarf into a small pool, followed by Xephos.

"Oh my gods." spluttered Honeydew as he emerged wet and bedraggled from the landing pool with Xephos, entirely drenched, and had the unpleasantry of landing in a small enough pool that had been half emptied by Honeydew's explosion of a landing.

"Um..." Xephos said as they looked around.

They seemed to be in a very colourful fairground, surrounded by tents, stands, and colour. The slide they'd come from was a wooden tube that seemed to have been nailed onto an exact replica of the skull that had been on the other side of the mountains that backed the strange fairground, it's tongue seemed to have been savagely hacked off some time recently, Honeydew observed the fragments of stone and cracks in the skull's face.

"That was...enjoyable." stated Xephos blankly, and suddenly the gorilla was upon them.

It gave a high pitched roar and stood up strangely straight in it's sopping fur.

"What the hell is this-" Honeydew started to say, when the gorilla spoke.

"Welcome to the Carnival Del Banjo!" it announced in a thin nasal and muffled voice. "Did you enjoy your free trip down our premier ride: The Skull?!" he asked.

The gorilla then reached up and grabbed the top of it's head, giving it a tug, and suddenly before them was a middle-aged bald man in a gorilla suit holding a mask.

"This is not quite what I expected." said Xephos, ignoring the man for the time being.

"No, I was expecting some dark horrible place, like a dungeon. Or somewhere like The Crevice. But it's just some kind of theme ride."

It seemed though, the man in the gorilla suit was not so easy to be rid of.

"Ahahaha! I had you fooled, didn't I?" He said in his nasally voice.

"Oh? Look Honeydew He's not really a gorilla, he's a man."

"Did you think that he actually was a gorilla?"

"You see I am not actually a gorilla!" the man piped up. They were already getting the impression that this man was the kind who was always happy and in your face.

The man swiftly drew a black bowler hat from apparently nowhere and placed it atop his shiny head. "I am just a man. Mr. Banjo at your service! Welcome again friends!"

Xephos walked away from Mr. Banjo to look around. The Carnival was a ring of brightly lit tents and booths surrounding the exit of The Skull and in the central pavilion there was a large stage with it's back to the throat of Skull Pass. Xephos walked away from The Skull and between two tents that had a small path that led to a large roller-coaster of mine-carts on a wispy wooden frame next to a large windmill.

"Uhh...Hello Mr. Banjo..." said Honeydew as Xephos looked at the roller coaster in interest. _Please don't hurt me._ He thought.

"Hello my friend!" Mr. Banjo answered, as he climbed out of the rest of the suit.

"_Where have you gone?!" _hissed Honeydew around the corner of the tent as soon as he could get away from Banjo, who soon dragged him back to the center, yammering about how there was so much for them to see.

"Sorry!" said Xephos as he rounded the corner and came back to the middle, hoping to dry off by a large open brazier there. "I was..." _Looking for a way out. _"Taking in the sights."

"There is a lot to see." Honeydew agreed as he wrenched free of Mr. Banjo.

Xephos and Honeydew went and stood with their backs to the fire to warm themselves as Banjo literally ran in circles below the chin of The Skull which loomed over-head. He was chattering randomly in excitement.

Xephos saw something move in the corner of his eye, and turned to see an ebony skinned woman with an even darker dress and darker still eyes. She was wearing two gold bracelets on each of her wrists, a gold chain with an amethyst the size of a robins egg at her throat and diamond earrings behind her straight-cut hair, her hair that matched her eyes. She walked lightly to the other side of the brazier and stood there in silence.

"There's a lady here." Xephos whispered to Honeydew, who looked up suddenly. "A black lady."

"A _beautiful_ lady." Honeydew corrected, sauntering over to the dark woman. "Hello!" he said cheerily.

What happened next could not have been a bigger turn-off for Honeydew if she said that she was a man.

"Welcome, strange ones!" she said in a voice that resembled a frogs' croak.

"Umm...Maybe we should ask them some questions?" offered Xephos, hardly holding back laughter as he pulled Honeydew, whose expression was a mask of shock, confusion, horror and hilarity, away from the woman.

"Gods how old is she?" whispered Xephos as soon as they were out of earshot. "She sounds older than Granny Bacon."

"Her voice is like dust!" Honeydew said.

"Gravely dust."

"So, I think we should talk to them and find out where we are." Xephos proposed. "Ask them some questions, like-"

"Where the hell are we?" asked Honeydew loudly, turning to Mr. Banjo.

"Or have you seen a pale-faced man?" Xephos asked too. "and an old Knight."

"Why, this is the world renowned Carnival-Del-Banjo!" replied Banjo loudly, crossing towards them. "I do believe I said so before!"

"We weren't listening, again." Xephos sighed and stepped back.

"How unlike us to not pay attention to what other people say." said Honeydew, sarcasm thickly slathered on his voice.

Suddenly, the black women spoke again, in her deep croak of a voice.

"Hmm...Nubescu did be feeling something," the woman, apparently named Nubescu was staring at the two, unblinking. "An evil spirit did wash over this place..."

"No evil whatsoever!" yelled Banjo as he continued to run in excited circles around the splash pool at the bottom of The Skull.

"I think Mr. Banjo is in denial." Honeydew said, without trying to mask his voice. "He seems to be in denial about something going on."

"This is a beautiful and exciting and fun and exciting place!" the small man trilled as he did a cartwheel.

"But Nubescu is saying that something bad is happening, that: "Some evil did wash over this place." Honeydew continued.

"Well what do we do here?" asked Xephos aloud.

"But, Nubescu knows da mysteries of da voodoo!" announced the frog voiced Madam Nubescu.

"The things we have here!" Mr. Banjo ran up to Xephos and tugged him towards a long tent on the right side of The Skull. "Look! Look!"

"What do you mean?" Xephos tried to ask Nubescu, but was dragged off.

"This guy is just trying to show us around." Honeydew said as he ran after Xephos and Banjo.

"Nubescu's place!" Banjo said as they reached the front of the tent, where there was a long wooden counter that separated the outside from the in. On a sign hanging from the blue and red striped tent roof, a sign dangled reading:

_Madame_

_Nubescu's_

_Hoodoo House_

_Of Voodoo_

"This is Nubescu's place?" stated Xephos.

Nubescu, who seemed to have appeared without a sound beside them spoke up:

"Visit Nubescu's tent later if jah want to know jah future."

Xephos jumped at the sound of her voice and backed away from the tent followed by Honeydew.

"Should we have our fortunes told?" asked Honeydew.

"That might be good." agreed Xephos.

"Nubescu seems to know...well, something."

"Very voodoo and mysterious!" exclaimed Mr. Banjo running up to them.

"Should we go ask now?" Xephos.

"Yeah we should."

"She will tell you your future, your fortune, your destiny, and your fate!" Banjo yelled grandly.

"Aren't those all the same?" asked Honeydew bluntly. "I would like my future told!"

"...For a small sum of gold of course..."

Honeydew looked up, his face worried.

"A sum of gold?" he said. "Hang on, no one mentioned gold."

Mr. Banjo, apparently at a loss for words, yelled out:

"EXCITING!"

"Ahh... jah be wantin' ta know what da spirits have in for jah?" asked Nubescu from behind the counter.

"One second if you may..." said Xephos, dragging Honeydew away from the stall, and giving Mr. Banjo a stern look, telling him that he didn't want company.

"Do we even have any gold?" asked Xephos once he was sure they were out of earshot.

"Oh god's you're right."

"Hold on, I'll look through my stuff." Xephos slung his pack off and started to go through it, looking for any gold.

"We might have a bit of a problem if we don't have any gold-"

"Oh!" cried Xephos as he pulled three small bags from his rucksack. "I've got some gold, remember? I stole it from Daisy's dad's basement."

"Oh of course you did. Of course you did." Honeydew looked back over his shoulder to where Nubescu and Mr. Banjo were talking in hushed voices, punctuated by Banjo occasionally yelling: "FUN!" or "EXCITING!".

"I might have some pieces of gold ore from the old mine too." Honeydew sniffed as Xephos counted the gold fingers in the bags.

"Have you?" asked Xephos as he stood up and walked back to Nubescu, Banjo was chasing a chicken through the courtyard now, the poor thing was clucking wildly. "Some gold ore?"

"Yeah, I think I dug it up from the the mine that is under what used to be Mistral City."

They arrived back at the counter where Nubescu was waiting expectantly.

"Jah have to be crossin' mah palms with ten gold ingots." she said bluntly.

"Ten gold ingots!" shouted Honeydew in disbelief.

Xephos shook his head and turned, leaning his back against the counter. Banjo was chasing the chicken still, and the poor bird was so distressed that it jumped and ran into the open fire where it's feathers ignited and within seconds it was burning. It was screaming wretchedly and clearly in tormenting pain. Xephos stooped and picked up a choice rock and threw it with much speed towards the dying bird. It hit the chicken on the head and it fell over in the flames, dead. Mr. Banjo seemed not to have noticed Xephos, and only looked slightly disappointed as the chicken proceeded to charr-grill.

"Oh no! My chicken!" he yelled, looking over to where Xephos was watching. "It died in the fire." he said.

Xephos turned to Honeydew who was attempting to barter with Nubescu, but his usual tricks seemed to fail him.

"Let that not dampen your spirits! It was probably the chicken's destiny!" Banjo called after him.

"Have you got ten gold ingots?" asked Honeydew.

Mr. Banjo yelled out again.

"I bet Nubescu gave that fortune to the chicken! Oh ho ho ho ho ho!"

"Yeah I've three bags, so..." each of the bags contained nine small ingots, and there were three bags. "...Oh yeah, I've got heaps. I've got twenty-seven gold ingots."

"Holy crap!"

"I told you it was good to take the gold!"

"But since there be to o' jah, that be twenty." stated Nubescu.

"Oh shit, she overheard us." swore Xephos.

Honeydew sighed. "Look, just give her the twenty, and we'll have our fortunes read."

"Okay, have the twenty ingots." Xephos Held up two of the bags, each with ten ingots, and the other, with seven left over, he strung to his belt. "What will you have us do with them?"

"Do we have to go around the back?" asked Honeydew.

"Very well strangers, come with me down to da Scryin' Chamber." Nubescu said as she disappeared behind a curtain walked to the side of her large stall and opened a door for them.

"Oh, thank you." Honeydew said as he entered first.

Xephos followed, but paused when he heard Mr. Banjo's voice faintly on the other side of the carnival, whispering to someone in another stall.

"Get ready, Bruno, I think they'll be here soon! I hope you're as strong as always!"

As Xephos shook his head and entered the stall behind Honeydew he heard a loud deep laugh come from where he'd seen Banjo talking.

When Xephos entered he found himself in a dimly lit room that seemed to be Nubescu's sleeping apartments, There was a large silky bed at the end opposite the door and the rest of the room had pedestals burning sickly smelling incense and displaying skulls or other macabre things that would've frightened ordinary people, but seemed interesting to Honeydew and Xephos.

A thought then crossed Xephos's mind. Where was all of the customers? this was a large fairground, there ought to be hundreds of people, from peasants to lordlings. But it was nearing midday and they'd seen no one in the grounds save Nubescu, Mr. Banjo, and heard "Bruno".

"Madame, if you don't mind me asking, where is everyone?" said Xephos, explaining his reasoning.

"I don' know," Nubescu said as she led them through her room and back out through the curtain to the stall front. "Yesterday dey come in 'undreds, today, no one but jah. I feel somethin' evil come over dis place last night, an' it scarin' 'way payin' customers. Soon we leave."

She walked along to the end of her stall facing The Skull and pulled open a trap door, releasing a waft of pungent incense.

"Down 'ere." Madame Nubescu croaked and began to descend the ladder into a dark room.

"Watch yourselves down there!" called Mr. Banjo in is increasingly irritating voice. "It's very dark and mysterious! Oh ho ho ho ho ho!"

"Oh my gods..." Honeydew coughed, waving the smoke of burners away from his face then walked towards the ladder. He began to descend but the fumes had made him light headed and as he felt with his foot to find a rung, he slipped and fell three meters onto the floor below with a thud and a moan.

"Shit, son! Are you okay!" called Xephos.

"I'm alright, ladders were never my strong point." Honeydew cried back up as he picked himself up from the ground.

"Jah be be watching that step." Nubescu offered too late as Xephos began to descend. The walls of the hole as it stretched down were lined with silk purple curtains, that the smell of incense clung to.

As he reached the bottom, Nubescu was standing at the entrance to a large room bedecked with more curtains in varying shades of pink and purple. If her room above had seemed voodoo, it paled in comparison to this room.

"Welcome to da Voodoo Scryin' Chamber!" Nubescu announced.

"Ooo..." gasped Xephos as he took a step into the room, Honeydew on his heels. The floor was covered in a swath of red carpet, and was filled with multiple chests that lined the walls, signs above them to show what they contained, and in the center of the room there was a cauldron as black as a night's sky, eerie shadows cast across it by incense candles, the only source of light in the room.

"What the hell is this..." said Honeydew as he stepped past Xephos and bent to look at one of the labels on a chest. ""Flowers dem would offer dem who be mourned."." he read, and Xephos opened the chest to find that it contained several flowers, some dried, some fresh, and all of different colours and species, including various cacti.

"It's full of flowers..." Xephos said as Honeydew moved to the other side of the room to examine another chest.

""Stuff what be makin' jah teeth go black."." the Dwarf read from another sign. Xephos walked over to him as he opened the lid to find that the chest was filled with contents very similar to those in Jasper's House.

"There's some 'orrible things in here." said Honeydew as he and Xephos examined more chests, some labeled "Squid spleens and Jambawop tentacles." and others "Oomba snap slimy and slippery from dem depths."

"Step up to the cauldron when jah be done snoopin' around me voodoo supplies." Nubescu called to them.

"Oh, sorry." cringed Xephos as he and Honeydew approached the cauldron.

"I was just curious." said Honeydew, sounding hurt.

""Hoodoo Moodoo Voodoo Cauldron."." Honeydew read the big letters engraved into the cast iron of the immense pot, which would've been large enough to boil a whole boar. "So we just stand here?"

"Okay..." murmured Xephos. "What do we need to do? Do we, put our hands on a weegee board or something?"

Nubescu looked up, her eyes even darker in the smokey room.

"Now...the spirit's cloud jah future..." she croaked in her frog voice. "But...them cobwebs be blown away easy with a little gold!"

"So, are we doing it one at a time?" interrupted Honeydew. "Or are our futures..."

"Entwined?" offered Xephos.

"I don't know, I feel like we should get our money's worth." stated Honeydew. "Yeah entwined, that's a terrifying thought."

"Throw twenty gold ingot into da cauldron along wit' other offerings to da spirits." instructed Nubescu, who seemed to have grown taller in the half light.

Xephos took the bag of twenty ingots and upended it into the cauldron with a splash. he watched with some regret as the four sets of golden fingers danced to the bottom of the clear water.

Nubescu then moved from the cauldron and to the right hand wall, where apart from the many chests, there was another sign on the wall, bigger than the others. "Jah be seein' da list o' what they be wantin' here,"

"Oh, she's looking at this list over here, friend." Xephos said, walking around the cauldron to where Nubescu was looking. The sign was no more than a board hanging from chains, and the writing was writ in a very poorly made fake blood. It read:

_Fortune recipe!_

_1x Mushroom, Red 1x Ink Sack_

_1x Raw Fish 1x Sugar Cane_

_1x Cactus 1x Lapis Lazuli_

Xephos read it out.

"Oh for gods' sake." Honeydew moaned loudly, as Xephos turned to one of the chests and began searching for the supplies. "Why do we need all of this?"

"Well, I've just found a red mushroom." said Xephos, closing one of the chests. "I'll throw it in with the gold."

He crossed towards the cauldron as Honeydew gave Nubescu a tongue lashing.

"I though we just needed the gold and now you're saying we need all of this crap!" he spat, under the assumption that they had to go out and find all of these things in the wilds. "I'm very disappointed, Madame Nubescu."

Xephos returned to the sign on the wall trying his best to avoid the potential fay that was going on. He was looking at the sign and made note of the other things that he'd be needing to gather from the chests; a raw fish, an ink sack, a cactus, sugar cane, and lapis lazuli.

"I don't be settin' the price, dwarf. It be da spirits." said Nubescu in an icy voice, despite her croak. "If jah don't like it, jah can go visit Bruno!"

"Are you going to help me here or not!?" asked Xephos irritably as he shut the lid on another chest after obtaining a single gem of lapis lazuli, noting another mention of the enigmatic Bruno.

Honeydew looked at him with an angry expression and looked as though he was about to say something that would probably get them kicked out, when he clicked.

"Oh, do we get everything from the chests? Are they in the chests?"

"Yeah, obviously!" exclaimed Xephos. "They've all got different stuff, haven't they?"

"Oh, sorry Madame." said Honeydew apologetically, as he went to look at the list again and walked over to Xephos. "Why doesn't she get the recipe? Why doesn't she just get the ingredients out?"

"Because she told us to do it!" snapped Xephos in annoyance. "You lazy bugger."

Honeydew, admitting defeat went to go and find a cactus.

"Oh, okay." he sighed.

Xephos walked over to the cauldron where Madame Nubescu was standing with an impatient expression, and dropped the lapis into the cauldron with a plish.

"She sounds like she smokes, maybe sixty a day." said Xephos in a low voice, as they gathered up the last of the ingredients and headed towards the cauldron. "That's what she sounds like."

"She does." admitted Honeydew. "And I think the way that she smokes them, is she lights up the cigarette, and inhales, and it goes right down the length of the cigarette with that one intake of breath. And then she uses the dog-end to light the next cigarette, then just does the same." they chuckled. "Every intake of breath, like that."

Nubescu was looking at them suspiciously as they dumped the rest of the ingredients into the cauldron.

"Have we done it right, oh Madame?" asked Honeydew partially in sarcasm.

"Do we have to stir it?" asked Xephos.

"Mmm..." Nubescu mumbled. "I can sense it...Da spirits be happy wit' jah offering. Now let me mix it up, wit' mah voodoo stick."

Honeydew had to suppress a fit of giggles as she said this, and reached down to pick up her voodoo stick; a short black wood stave with a silver skull at it's head and a serpent of silver coiling down it's length.

"_Oomba woomba viggy ambuk!" _she chanted as the silver skull of her voodoo stick began to swirl the water of the cauldron.

"This is a bit racist." mumbled Honeydew, when suddenly the light from the candles began to burn low, and a dull purple light began to throb from the cauldron. The same light as the light from the Nether Portals.

"What the fuck!?" swore Xephos, taking a step away from the cauldron to watch in horror.

"Spirits o' da Nether! Jah hear mah...mah..." Nubescu began, the eerie purple light, casting shadow across her face, turning her into a demon. Suddenly there was an interruption in the process.

"Oogey boogey, habadajabagadaja, oogey. Oobooja oogey!" blubbered Honeydew gleefully as he stirred the cauldron in the opposite direction of Nubescu, using the butt of his shovel.

"What jah be doin, jah fool!?" Nubescu cried. Suddenly the light faded and the candles relit as Nubescu drew her voodoo stick out of the cauldron and struck Honeydew with it.

"Ow!" he complains as he adjusted his helmet, where he was hit.

"Get away!" Nubescu ordered. "Dis be a delicate incantation! I can't 'ave jah dwarfin' it up!"

"Yeah, stop messin' with her cauldron, Honeydew."

"Dwarfin' it up!?" cried Honeydew in offense, then looked up at Nubescu's face. "I apologise."

Nubescu coughed and began stirring again. Soon the lights dimmed and the purple hue of the portal returned.

"Dah clouds, dey be lifting'." Nubescu began to say, he voice slightly changing. "I hear the spirits speaking through me!"

"Oh my gods! There's a sheep!" cried Honeydew, pointing at the exit, where a sheep was standing in the doorway, looking perplexed. It walked forwards and began to walk around the cauldron.

"Is it bad luck to kill the sheep?" asked Xephos, turning to Nubescu, but Nubescu was not there, something else was instead.

The thing that looked like Nubescu stood where she did and as she did, it was Nubescu save three things, her eyes were now swirling pools of sickly purple light, she was levitating about two feet off of the ground, and her voice was totally different as she spoke Honeydew's prophecy.

"_-Dwarf, do not mourn, your lost love-"_ it spoke in a light angelic voice.

"Oh my god's it's a spirit!" Honeydew cried. "The sheep must be a spirit!"

"Quiet, you're missing you're own prophecy!" Xephos yelled.

"_-More bacon awaits you at your journey's end-"_ The thing spoke. It then lowered to the ground, and Nubescu suddenly was herself again.

"That's a good fortune!" congratulated Xephos.

"Great news indeed!" agreed Honeydew.

"What does at mean...an'...an'..." she began, then saw the sheep as it tried to eat the drapes.

"It means a lot to me." said the dwarf.

"Wha' is dis sheep be doin' in mah Scryin' Chamber!?" yelled Nubescu.

"I've got it." Honeydew called as he pulled out and loaded his crossbow, then turned and shot the sheep in the back of the neck. It died instantly, and a small puddle of blood began to accumulate on the floor. Thankfully the incense masked the smell and it was hardly the nastiest thing in the room.

"Thank jah dwarf." the nastiest thing in the room [Too much?] said, before turning to Xephos. "Jah turn, spaceman."

Xephos could feel his cheeks paling.

"What did you call me?" he asked horrified. But Nubescu was gone again, and the spirits were once again speaking through her.

"_-You shall be met again by a man in blue, and a man in red-" _said the girl-like voice that was so different from Nubescu's. _"-Trust your heart, and know,that they are not as they seem-"_ Nubescu then dropped once more to the ground and looked about.

"Ooo..." sighed Xephos, wondering what it could mean, when suddenly Nubescu was speaking.

"Wait, wait...what's dis?" she gasped, clutching the edge of the cauldron, which was now churning faster than before, despite no one stirring it. "They be speaking through we once more. They have a message for a friend..."

"Old Peculier!?" asked Honeydew.

"_**-A Knight, old but full of life-"**_ said the spirits, but now it was much more powerful. Nubescu was being lifted at least two meters into the air, the voice was now slightly warped and distorted, and her hair was standing on end.

"That's him, Xephos! That's him!" cried Honeydew in awe. "She means Old Peculier!"

They backed away as Nubescu began to glow purple, but not before Honeydew took the opportunity to snatch a glance up her dress.

"_**-His family has secrets, but he does not know-His father is not who he says he is-"**_ It said, then Nubescu dropped to the ground.

"Oh gods..." said Honeydew. "That sounds ominous."

"Are you alright Madame?" asked Xephos as she stood up blearily.

"Hmmmm..." she murmured, thinking. She turned to them.

"Dis be unclear. Come back later. I will see what I can be scryin."

"Thank you, voodoo lady." Xephos said as he headed for the exit.

"We will check in later with you, thank you madame." Honeydew also thanked as he followed Xephos towards the ladder out.

"Oh, I need a smoke." Nubescu moaned as they began to climb out.

_**Author's Notes:**_

_Well, I;m back from hiatus, and you can all expect that I will be updating this story weekly again. I thank you all for being so accommodating with the wait. Also, I am thinking of getting a Twitter account so that it will be easier for you guys to follow when the next chapter comes out, and any altercations that may arise. That's all for now. Stay crunchy, my cornflakes!_


	13. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter13

Chapter 13: World's Strongest Dwarf

"Jah be enjoyin' the carnival!" called Nubescu as Honeydew and Xephos began to climb the ladder back to the surface. By now it was probably nearing midday, and they needed to find some answers about this place.

"Let's get out of here." sighed Xephos as he began to climb after Honeydew, welcoming the thought of unspoiled air after the incense laden chamber.

As they neared the top, Honeydew noticed the hatch leading out was now closed, which was odd, considering that no one had left the chamber or come in, save maybe the mysterious sheep that had dropped in, literally.

Honeydew pressed his arm up against it and pushed it open further, closing his eyes and sighing in ecstasy as the clean air rushed in to meet him.

He began to climb out and then opened his eyes, and nearly fell back down the hole when he saw a white face before him with a wide red grin.

"Woah!" he cried as he pulled himself out in front of the green haired clown who started to cackle maniacally. It wore a pair of purple glasses with spiraling lenses that made Honeydew dizzy. It also had a pink shirt with a polka-dotted bow-tie, and wore a pair of ridiculously over-sized purple overalls. And of course, as token of a clown, it wore a red nose and huge shoes.

"What the fuck?" said Honeydew as he moved out of the way of Xephos as he crawled out.

"What is it?" Xephos asked, then looked up.

"HELLO!" yelled the clown, in a starkly familiar voice.

"Ahh!" cried Xephos as he climbed out of the hole, his fingers brushing his sword pommel. "Banjo!" he yelled in annoyance.

"Err..."Why so serious?"." said Honeydew, quoting the play, The Dark Knight, about a lord who took the guise of The Dark Knight, a knight clothed like a bat, to protect his city from many kinds of creatures, including an evil jester that plotted within the city to take him down.

"Oh gods, it's Mr. Banjo." breathed Xephos as the clown clapped and jumped about.

"HI VISITORS!" he yelled Banjo in his usual creepy enthusiasm.

"Hello..." said Xephos hesitantly.

"If he asks you if you want to see a trick, just say no, I'm not interested." advised Honeydew, eying the Mr. Banjo with suspicion.

"He's very scary, isn't he?" said Xephos without a hint of sarcasm. He did not trust men who hid their faces.

"It's me!" Banjo cried, clapping his white gloved hands. "Mr. Banjo! Don't panic! I'm just _dressed up_ as something else!"

"Heh..." laughed Honeydew nervously. "_He looks like a serial killer..."_ he said in a high voice.

"Don't worry too much!" laughed Mr. Banjo. "Oh hohohoho!"

He then turned and ran through the door to Nubescu's room and headed to the exit.

"Come friends, to the excitingiest bit of all of this!" he cried as they followed.

"It's a word." assured Honeydew, opening the door into the outside, once again relishing the fresh air as they followed Banjo over to a tent on the opposite side of the clearing.

"I'm never taking air for granted again." gasped Xephos.

"It's got a sort of clean taste to it." said Honeydew thoughtfully.

Banjo led them over to a long stall with an orange and green canvas roof, the same one Xephos had seen Banjo talking to someone, that someone now stood on the other side of the counter.

"THIS IS BRUNO!" cried Mr. Banjo as he ran around to the other side of the stall behind the buffest man Xephos and Honeydew had ever seen. He was rather short for a man of his amount of muscle and broadness, only and inch at the most taller than Xephos, with a bald head and a thick mustache that tuned down at the corners of his mouth and continued down to his neck. His arms were the size of small trees, the muscles huge and bulging to gross proportions, as were the ones on his chest and abdomen, his pictorials decorated by a neatly trimmed tuft of chest hair that was the only thing that covered his chest. He looked rather proud of it.

"_This_ is the strongman?" asked Honeydew, in an unimpressed sounding voice. "What a manly man."

"The _strongest_ man in the world." assured Banjo as he snuck up behind Bruno and began caressing his chest. "This is a fact, not just a hyperbole."

"Errm..." said Honeydew uncomfortably as Xephos cringed.

Bruno, enjoying his massage, chose now to speak up.

"Tiny Dwarf!" he said in an accent thick with the wild steppes Frussia to the north. "You look as strong as little mouse! Gwa ha ha ha ha!" he laughed.

"_What."_ spat Honeydew, his voice dripping with acid. _"How dare you..."_

"There was an investigation and Bruno won!" said Mr. Banjo happily, seemingly enjoying the massage more than Bruno was. "He is world-renowned for being strong! _Very _strong."

"I've never heard of him." replied Xephos, hoping to catch Mr. Banjo off guard.

"You are _weak little babby man!"_ Bruno laughed his great gwaffing laugh again.

"How _very_ dare you!" spat Honeydew in anger.

Bruno laughed again.

"He called me a: "weak little babby man!"." complained Honeydew, clearly looking for an excuse to bear steel against him.

"Well, you are a dwarf..." said Xephos, which hardly remedied the matter.

"He can smash _anything _ with his fists, and head! Though mostly fists." Banjo said, moving down to Bruno's bulging abs.

"Little babby want to challenge big Bruno?" asked the Strongman.

"I am strong..." began Honeydew. "...like _moose!"_

Bruno laughed at this too.

"Can I fight him?" asked Honeydew to Xephos.

"I don't know, it's called "Test your strength."." said Xephos reading the sign on the front of the counter. "Maybe there's a way we can do this without getting on the bad side of the carnies."

"I will prove that I am!" yelled Honeydew.

"He is very strong." said Xephos backed him up. "Even for a dwarf."

"_He's_ so strong it's unbelievably incredible!" protested Banjo in Strongman Bruno's favor. "But, this _is_ THE TEST OF STRENGTH! Can you challenge Bruno like a proper, brave man?" asked Mr. Banjo.

Bruno laughed at the thought of it.

"_Dwarf."_ corrected Honeydew. "And I will take your challenge."

Bruno looked humored by this, and to their surprise he stood up. He'd been a tall man sitting down, but standing up, he was a monster, at a guess Xephos would have called him at seven-foot-five. Banjo leap back and began laughing as Bruno walked around to the side of the stall and into the daylight, where he began to flew his grotesquities.

"Look at him flexing!" trilled Banjo as he leapt over the stall and in front of Bruno. "Everything about this man is big!" he proclaimed. _"...everything..."_ he added to Bruno reassuringly as he suddenly looked downcast.

"This might not be a good idea..." said Xephos in awe as Bruno recovered himself. "Look, he's showing off his six-pack."

"I must." answered Honeydew resolutely. "I've got to prove myself."

Honeydew sized up Bruno, stopping briefly to snigger at his tiny pair of pink lady-like pants, that seemed hardly filled with any package.

"You are wearing tiny little pink ladies pants." spat Honeydew in his posh voice, which had decided to make a return. "Like tiny little lady!"

"That's what strongmen wear." said Xephos as Bruno, being trailed by Banjo, passed them on the way to the stage beneath the chin of The Skull. "I think."

"So strong!" exclaimed Banjo as he and Bruno walked on, heading up to the right of the stage, walking up and standing on the right wing, where a sign hung above on The Skull's stone chin.

_World's_

_Strongest Man!_

It read.

"Oh, I see!" yelled Xephos, dragging Honeydew towards the stage. "You're in the: "World's Strongest Man." competition." he pointed to the sign above Bruno, and to another on the left side of the stage. "You're the: _"Challenger."_. We go up here." he read

He and Honeydew ran up the left side of the stage to where Mr. Banjo was waiting in the center.

"Okay!" he yelled. "A challenge has been started!"

"Oh my gods, what is going on?" Honeydew asked as he looked around the stage. Behind him there was a thick blue curtain, and from it to either side of the stage were a set of small cart rails that led to the front of the two podiums intended for Bruno and whoever he was challenging.

"I will be the referee." announced Mr. Banjo to a bleacher in front of the stage totally devoid of life save a few pigeons relieving themselves. "There will be no cheating, and all non contestants must leave the stage." he looked at Xephos who moved to the stairs and moved down to in front of Honeydew on the stone floor where he stood.

"Do you get a little tub of chalk that you slap your hands in?" asked Xephos as he looked up at Honeydew.

"Should I take my armor off?" asked Honeydew as he unslung his pack and set it on the floor beside him.

"Probably, yeah." agreed Xephos as Honeydew pulled his surcoat along with his chain and steel plated shirt, then his boots and greaves until he only wore his black leather pants, leather greaves, and iron horned cap, revealing once again his own muscular chest. Compared to Bruno's, it did seem small, but Honeydew's were actually becoming, whereas Bruno looked as though he was some kind of deformed sausage about to split it's skin. Honeydew also made an extra effort to showcase his ginger hair that sprouted from his nether-regions and up to his belly button.

"I'll hold onto that." offered Xephos as Honeydew gave him his armor, riddled with arrow holes to place on the bleacher seats. Xephos did this and then returned to standing at the edge of the podium. "I'll just leave them there." he said.

Honeydew flicked the end of his long orange beard over his shoulder, showing off his broad chest covered in a mat of ginger hair. He flexed, causing his huge muscles to bulk up. Even next to Bruno, a huge seemingly sewn together monstrosity of muscle, Honeydew was undeniably very strong. Secretly, Honeydew had hope. Very few men could ever hope to be as strong as a dwarf, and Honeydew was a very strong dwarf. But compared to other men, Bruno was something totally different.

"Now you look the part, definitely!" cheered Xephos.

"You look like little babby." corrected Bruno.

"COMPETITION TIME!" cried Mr. Banjo, hopping about in excitement.

"Li'l babby?" Honeydew said through gritted teeth. "Oh, I'm gonna bloody show you, I'm gonna show you!"

"BRING ON THE TEST...of...STRENGTH!" screamed Banjo as he ran back to the curtain. "Here we go! Round One!" he disappeared behind the heavy curtain there was a faint clinking sound, but nothing moved.

"What now?" asked Honeydew looking about suspiciously. "Do we fight?"

Bruno laughed evilly as he looked at Honeydew.

Banjo suddenly appeared from behind the curtain on Bruno's side, pushing a large flat rail cart with a canvas thrown over it along the rails.

"You must smash everything that Bruno smashes." he announced with a giggle. "FISTS ONLY! No cheating!"

"Oh, right. Okay." said Honeydew as Mr. Banjo pushed the cart around to in front of Bruno's dais, and thew the cover off.

"Round one! Cake!"

On the wide platform of the cart there were four thick, flat sponge cakes, all looking rather stale. Xephos wondered sadly if they'd been bought from Granny Bacon's.

"We have to smash a cake?" asked Honeydew quizzically as Banjo brought the cart round to him and disposed of another cake.

"Apparently." Xephos answered. "Or eat it, with you, I don't know what one is faster."

"I...What...Is this to do with speed?" asked Honeydew as Banjo pushed the cart back through the curtain, and returned to the middle the stage without answering.

"And...Get ready!" Banjo said in excitement.

"What do I do?!" asked Honeydew in a flustering state, looking at the cake on the ground. "How do I smash a cake?"

Meanwhile, Bruno knelt before the cake and touched the ground with his right hand, then stood poised over the cake.

"_Get ready!" _hissed Xephos to Honeydew, who quickly moved into a crouch over the cake, looking no less confused.

"IT'S SMASHING TIME!" yelled Mr. Banjo.

Honeydew exploded onto his cake, stamping on it a few times, then descending to tear at it with his hands. It was gone in hardly a second, the fragments of spread across his dais, he looked up with his fist raised in the air in triumph, then saw Mr. Banjo looking at his in a confused expression, while Bruno was laughing. Honeydew looked over and saw _his_ cake was untouched.

Honeydew laughed in victory.

"I won!" he jeered. "I won!"

Bruno continued to laugh.

"I said no cheating." said Banjo in his usual care-free tone.

"I won!" Honeydew repeated, turning to Bruno. "IN. YOUR. FACE."

"I think it may have been a false start." offered Xephos, wiping some cake from his face. "I don't think: "It's smashing time!" is the queue to start."

"That's fine." assured Banjo, moving back towards the curtain.

"Babby lose." smiled Bruno.

"We have a backup cake!" cried Banjo emerging from the curtain again, with another cake.

"Oh good, he's got a backup cake. Apparently in case there was a false start." said Xephos as Banjo set down the cake before Honeydew.

"We expect everything here at the Carnival Del Banjo!" chortled Mr. Banjo, hopping back to the center.

"Oh. I got a bit over excited." said Honeydew. "This isn't how I imagined a Strongman Competition, I thought that we'd be carrying around massive granite spheres or something rather than eat cake."

"Well, you're good at both." smiled Xephos as Banjo began to speak.

"Here we go again!" he yelled. "Ready..."

"Okay, here we go." sighed Honeydew.

"Steady...GO!" Banjo cried.

Honeydew fell upon the cake with the same vigor that he did on the previous one, kicking and ripping and biting until it was no more than a pulp on the ground. Only a second or two had passed when he looked up and saw Bruno on the opposite end of the stage, still working on his cake. He'd seemed to have opted to attempt to eat the entire thing, and was done only a few seconds after Honeydew.

"Oh! Yes!" cried Xephos on from the ground. "You owned him!"

"Ahh yeah..." grinned Honeydew, kicking a wad of mushy cake at Bruno. "You are weak like little babby!" he yelled at him.

Bruno swallowed his mouthful of cake and leered at the dwarf.

"The Challenger wins the cake round!" shouted Banjo as though to a huge crowd, holding his arms up as though to a raucous applause or cascade of boos.

"You're one ahead!" smiled Xephos, stepping back.

"This is tasty round!" stated Strongman Bruno.

"You will be little fat babby if you eat like that all the time." sneered Honeydew.

"Alright!" said Banjo, running back behind the curtains and returning with another covered cart. "Round Two!"

"Okay, what's next?" wondered Xephos.

"PUMPKIN!" Mr. Banjo threw the cover off the trolley and revealed eight large orange pumpkins. He shifted them onto Bruno's platform.

"A pumpkin?" said Honeydew as Banjo rolled out one in front of Bruno. "Oohh... A double pumpkin?" ...and another. "A triple pumpkin! Oh gods!"

"Woah..." breathed Xephos as Banjo set out three more pumpkins in front of Honeydew. "This is a lot of smashing."

"Alrighty!" said Banjo as he clapped his hands and returned to his central position. "Ladies and Gentlemen...It's Smashing Time!"

"That's not the queue to start!" yelled Xephos to his friend who was staring at the row of three pumpkins laid out before him, contemplating how to best smash them. "No, it's on go."

"Round two..." Banjo looked at both of the contestants. "...Ready...Steady...Go!"

Xephos watched as Honeydew balled both of his fists into one and brought it down onto the first pumpkin, breaking it in half. Honeydew quickly stamped both of those halves into a mush and moved to the next. Bruno was already on his second, breaking it like his first, by brining down a colossal punch onto it, but the second pumpkin seemed to be no as ripe as the first, and it refused to break under the initial strike. Bruno made another, and it splattered apart, but by then Honeydew had stamped through his second and was just brought both of his fists down on the last pumpkin, bursting it, and winning again.

"Aww...Nice!" congratulated Xephos, Bruno finishing his only seconds later.

"I think I won! I think I won!" cheered Honeydew, stooping to pick up a handful of pumpkin goo, and once again turned to Bruno, activating his posh voice again. "How do like that, bitch? In your face!" he threw the pumpkin mess, which splattered into Bruno's face.

"And the Challenger wins the Second Round as well!" squeaked Mr. Banjo in mock shock.

"Now who is weak like little mouse?" asked Honeydew haughtily. "Rrrrrr!" he growled. "Not me!"

"I think those rounds were just triviality, though." Xephos advised as Banjo turned to Strongman Bruno. "The real challenges are only just beginning, I get the feeling."

"Bruno, you're about to be beaten like this?!" Mr. Banjo asked in faux despair.

Bruno wiped the last of the pumpkin pulp off his face, then began to laugh at Honeydew again.

"DWARVEN SUPREMACY!" chanted Honeydew, pushing a fist into the air.

"You are so small! It is funny to me! Gw ha ha ha!" Bruno pointed.

"Why does he mock me, I don't like it..." Honeydew sniffed.

"It's time for the REAL challenges now!" Banjo announced, tip-toeing back to the curtains, pulling the cart behind him, where there followed a series of knocks and bangs as he loaded something heavy onto the cart.

"But I'm already two point ahead!" protested Honeydew.

"I don't know if they counted, I think that they were just a warm-up, Honeydew." said Xephos, trying to peer over the raised stage into the curtains.

"What? Are you kidding me?"

"Yeah, he says that it's time for the "real challenges" now."

Just as Xephos said this, Mr. Banjo emerged from the curtains again, this time he was pushing to move the cart, the canvas covering whatever was beneath.

"Round Three..." he panted, but with no less than his usual vigor. He brought the cart about to Bruno's podium and threw off the cover to reveal two roughly cut cubes of slightly cracked rock. "...Stone!"

"Oh my gods, rock!" gasped Honeydew. "Solid rock."

"...solid rock." repeated Xephos as Bruno dragged his three-by-three yard cube of stone off the cart and it thumped onto the wooden flooring.

"Now we're talking!" laughed Mr. Banjo as Honeydew lifted the stone off the cart, trying to not look strained.

"Oh cripes." he breathed as he dropped it before him and surveyed it, looking at the faults, seeing where was best to strike the blows to crack the stone. "and I'm not allowed to use my pick. I have to punch it, with my dwarven fists."

"This is much more daunting." agreed Xephos.

"This is too easy!" laughed Bruno. "Let's make it more interesting!"

The giant man lumbered over and grabbed the trolley away from Honeydew and pulled it back around through the curtains, where there were more heavy noises.

"What?" asked Honeydew. "What's he doing?"

Bruno then emerged from the backstage with the cart piled high with nine more stone cubes.

"What the fuck?" swore Honeydew.

"What _is_ he doing?" asked Xephos as the strongman began to pile the nine blocks on top of the first until he had a nine-by-one wall with one more block in the middle of the bottom line at Bruno's feet. The wall was so large that Xephos could barely see the Bruno behind it, and Honeydew watched with his jaw agape.

"Why is he putting more down?" asked Xephos suspiciously.

"He's given himself _more_ stone?" Honeydew gaped.

"Oh ho ho ho!" giggled Mr. Banjo, jumping up and down in excitement. "Bruno is confident!"

"Why's he done that?" Xephos looked at Bruno and Banjo, wondering if this was orthodox.

"I don't know, watch him, though. Watch him incase he cheats." warned Honeydew. "I've got a feeling that he's gonna-"

"I smash ten faster than you smash one!" boasted Bruno.

"Ten faster than I smash one? Never." Honeydew said doubtfully. "No way!"

"Only the STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD could do something like that!" bantered Mr. Banjo.

"Okay, well let's see how this goes." Xephos sighed as he took a few steps back toward the bleachers.

"Alright..." Honeydew set his feet and raised his hands before the stone cube, ready to tear at it.

"I'll check on his to make sure he doesn't cheat." Xephos said, briefly skirting around to the side of the stage to see if Bruno had a secret pickaxe on the floor. But as he looked All he was doing was kneeling to touch the floor, as he did in the first round...like some kind ritual of his.

"This is so exciting!" tittered Banjo.

"Banjo is getting properly excited." Xephos whispered to his friend on his way around to the front of the stage again.

"I get the feeling that he's excited about everything." Honeydew grinned.

"Okay!" Banjo stood in the center.

"Whew...Okay..." Honeydew breathed, tensing his shoulders.

"Here we go..."

"I can do this, I can do this."

"Ready...Steady...GO!"

"Go, go, go, go, go!" screamed Xephos as his friend brought forwards a kick to the stone that sent a crack right up the side. He grabbed at it with both hands and pulled at the two halves of rock, hoping to pry them apart. As he strained he looked across at Bruno, and to his shock Bruno was already two blocks down, raining down several quick blows that were shattering the rock within seconds. Just as Honeydew recovered Bruno broke a third.

"Oh gods! Bruno is destroying the rocks! He's destroying the rocks!" cried Xephos t o his friend as a fourth went down.

Honeydew closed his eyes and strained, and when he opened them, they spilled yellow light.

"Gods..." breathed Xephos as Honeydew unleashed his Dwarven Might. The dwarf screamed and his muscles seemed to double, the stone was beginning to fracture. Bruno broke his fifth block. Honeydew grunted and suddenly his block spilt into two pieces and he growled in triumph. Bruno broke his sixth then seventh block in a flurry of blows that didn't even seem to touch the stone, yet they still crumbled. Honeydew knelt and picked up one of the two halves of the stone cube and went to place it atop the other. Bruno was now down to two. Honeydew dropped the half on top of it's sister and knelt before it, raising his thick fists into one. Bruno shattered his ninth and raised his fist for the last. Honeydew and Bruno began their final blows, and as the world slowed in it's rotation, the dwarf was too quick. His fists smashed onto the slabs and they disappeared into a cloud of rock dust and shingle. Half a second later, Bruno smashed his last block.

"Oh my gods!" cheered Xephos, hands on his head. "That was a last-moment finish!"

"Ooo..." groaned Honeydew as he stood, the yellow light fading from his eyes. "I did it!"

"AND BRUNO WINS!" Mr. Banjo cried.

"What!?" yelled Honeydew in outrage.

"Just barely!" Mr. Banjo told Honeydew.

"What!?" repeated Honeydew.

"It was very close, but I don't know about this..." Xephos commented.

"Gwa ha ha ha!" Bruno laughed at Honeydew.

"You fucking what!?" screamed Honeydew in Banjo's face.

"You looked to me like you were _just _ahead to me." nodded Xephos, glaring at Mr. Banjo and Strongman Bruno. "I think you've been robbed."

"I am _**much**_ stronger than you!" Bruno flexed his huge pink arms to prove this.

"I've been robbed! I've been robbed!" Honeydew pointed at Bruno.

"I'm sorry, all decisions are final." Banjo's normally cheerful demeanor vanished as he said this, sounding rather irritated and or nervous. "I was watching very closely."

"You dirty little cheating bastard! Take this!" Honeydew punched Mr. Banjo square in the chest, resulting to his and Xephos's satisfaction in a hearty "thunk", and a squeak from Banjo as he fell back across the stage and lay still for a moment before getting to his knees and adjusting his glasses.

"Woah, careful!" warned Xephos. "You're on a stage with Strongman Bruno!"

Even as he said this, Bruno moved in front of Banjo protectively.

"There will be no punching." Banjo said sternly, then turned to the strongman. "Bruno, punch him." he instructed.

"Oh shit! What?!" Honeydew turned and ran to his pack, settled next to his podium, and drew his short-sword from the sheath strapped to it. He spun about with it poised, ready to split Bruno like the fat sausage that he was.

Bruno hesitated even before Honeydew drew his blade, but now looked about and saw that Xephos too had his sword half drawn.

"Let me prove it with the last round." he said to Banjo.

"Alright, alright." conceded banjo, getting his breath back and getting to his feet. 'Let's calm down."

"Don't want to cause a riot." Honeydew said sheepishly, turning slowly and returning his sword to it's sheath.

"He want's to prove it in the last round." Xephos reminded.

"Okay..."

"Tell you what, dwarf." Mr. Banjo said. "One final round, for ALL the bragging rights. If you win, you are officially the strongest man-er-dwarf...IN THE WORLD..."

"A final round." breathed Xephos.

"One last round." Honeydew massaged his muscles. "To be fair, I've one the last three rounds..."

"They've all been pretty close though." Xephos said.

Banjo one last time returned to the backstage with the cart, and as he struggled to load whatever was the final trial, Honeydew and Bruno shot each other savage glances.

"I am a bit worried at how fast he went through all of that stone." Honeydew admitted to Xephos.

"I know, what the hell!?" Xephos agreed.

"I mean, that was _ten_ stone blocks!"

"You sure he wasn't using a pick?"

"I didn't see one, look at him! Do yo see anywhere he could keep a pick?"

"He's not using his pink panties for storing anything else of size." sniggered Honeydew.

Banjo the pushed the cart out for the last time, the canvas covering what seemed to be two more blocks.

"Round Four..." Banjo wheezed, pushing the cart around to Bruno's podium. He threw off the cover to unveil two very sturdy looking compact furnaces. "...FURNACE!"

"A furnace?" asked Honeydew as Bruno lifted off the grey stone box, supported by beams of wood and very heavy looking. "What on earth?"

Banjo wheeled the cart around and Honeydew lifted the box off. It weighed more than the stone block by almost two times. The beams of the stage seemed to agree as he set it down.

"OH MY! OH MY! THIS IS SO EXCITING!" Mr. Banjo jumped up and down as he pushed the cart back behind the curtain.

"See? Look at Bruno, he's not holding anything." Xephos consulted with Honeydew.

"No..."

"Watch him incase he whips one out."

"I'm sorry?" Honeydew asked, winking at his friend. "Madame Nubescu is watching as well."

Xephos turned, and for the first time he noticed that the sun had dipped low into the sky, and night was nearly upon them. Nubescu was leaning on the bleacher, watching with resigned interest.

"She's come out to see this." Honeydew cracked his knuckles.

"Oh boy, oh boy!" Banjo began hopping about again. "IT'S THE FINAL ROUND!" he cheered.

"Okay..." Honeydew said.

"You ready?" asked Xephos.

"I'm ready." Honeydew wasn't able to use his Dwarven Might, and was actually feeling quite drained. He began to examine the furnace, looking for the best way to bring about it's demise. "Oh gods. This is intense."

"It's the Immovable Force meeting the Unstoppable Object!" Banjo cried. "...Or however that saying goes."

"Yeah, you got that wrong." Honeydew muttered.

"Ready..."

"Here we go..." Xephos murmured.

"Steady..."

"Come on..." he whispered.

"GO!"

Honeydew waited until Bruno struck the first blow and a nano second later, he mirrored it, and then the next, and the next. He knew that if Bruno could destroy ten blocks of stone in around the same amount of time that it took for him finish one, he could not beat him. But he may be able to expose him. Honeydew copied all of Bruno's movements, all of them so lightening fast that they didn't seem to touch the furnace.

_Because it didn't._

Only seconds later, Bruno's furnace collapsed into a pile of stone dust, while, Honeydew's was only halfway there.

"Oh my gods! Bruno just owned you!" yelled Xephos in shock.

"BRUNO WINS!" shouted Banjo.

Bruno laughed at Honeydew as he continued to strike at his furnace, and slowly it did break, falling apart into panels on the stage.

"What the hell!?" Honeydew said, staring at the fallen furnace. "What? No, wait a minute, hang on a minute...No no no no no... Hang on! There's something not right here. This is fishy, there is something fishy here. I smell a rat. I smell a fishy rat. I smell a rat, and it is fishy."

"You lose!" Bruno laughed.

"Super-reinforced furnace, tough as nails and Bruno destroys it in a matter of seconds!" Mr. Banjo bragged. "STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD!"

"This is-This is fucking bullshit, I copied Bruno's moves, but when I broke it it sort of fell apart, but when he did it, it crumpled into dust in a matter of seconds!" Honeydew explained. "I'm a Dwarf! I know my stone, this furnace would only break like that when you hit it with a pickaxe."

"Oh no, dwarf-" Banjo said with a nervous giggle.

"I ain't fucking finished, mate." growled Honeydew. "Also, before you came on stage, you touched the ground, and before the Stone Round, you touched it again! What you were really doing was setting down and picking up an _invisible pickaxe!_ And judging frm the speed in which the stone broke, I would say a diamond one, Dwarven-make. Looks like it was a dwarf doing your work for you, Strongman Bruno. Also, your strikes seemed so fast that your fists didn't touch the blocks, which they wouldn't have, _because you are all cheating bastards!"_

"Oh god's I think that you're on to them." Xephos smiled. "It's a swizz, a carnival trick!"

"This is ridiculous." Honeydew spat at the floor. "Come on now!"

"Get stronger and challenge me again, little man." Bruno, whose face was flushed, said in a threatening voice.

"You-you were unlucky dwarf." Banjo said in a stutter. "Stone and Furnaces are Bruno's speciality."

"They're bloody cheating, they're cheating!" Honeydew accused.

"Oh no no no. You can trust me, Dwarf." Mr. Banjo assured, recovering some of himself.

"Like hell I can!" Honeydew snorted.

"I am trustworthy! Just look at me." Mr. Banjo jumped about.

"Well at least we didn't lose any money, can you imagine if we did?" Xephos turned to go and regather honeydew's armor, but the seat on the bleachers was empty. "...Although your armor has gone from the stands."

"Woah!" Honeydew exclaimed looking away from Banjo and Bruno. "Where the hell's my armor gone?"

"I don't know..."

"You lost, but you are truly a worthy challenger!" Mr. Banjo shouted as though to remedy the loss of the armor. "Just not strong enough!"

"Oh gods, these carnie folk, they distracted us and stole all of your armor." Xephos growled, looking about incase they were ambushed.

"I can't believe this...It's like they say..." Bruno began to laugh again. "Carnival people are all thieving bastards."

"Gods, get your stuff on so we can get out of here before they, like, set the dogs on us or something?" Xephos urged, suddenly very eager to get their prophecy from the waiting Nubescu and leave. "I'm a bit scared of this place now. Maybe this place is evil after all, and not friendly at all."

"You so weak!" taunted Bruno.

"I have shamed all dwarves everywhere." Honeydew turned away and busied himself in re-equipping his old armor that he'd kept in his pack, but really he was doing it so they wouldn't see him crying. Xephos still noticed though.

"Don't worry." He said. "Those cheating bastards shall pay. We'll find a way to get back at them, don't worry." he glared at Mr. Banjo and Strongman Bruno on the stage.

"Don't be sad, friend!" Banjo spoke up. "No one can beat Bruno!"

"How do you even lift your arms, little man!" Bruno jeered.

Thankfully Nubescu decided to speak now.

"Strangers!" she croaked from next to the bleachers.

"Oh, It's Nubescu!" Xephos walked over to her, and Honeydew followed.

"Dem spirits!" Dey be clear to me now!" Nubescu told them.

"Oh!" Xephos said. "She'd got some important news!"

"Jah friend! Jah friend da Knight!" she spoke as though trying to recall a faint memory.

"Peculeir?" asked Xephos.

Banjo ran about them, he'd taken off his wig and make-up so he now looked more or less like his normal face, he seemed to be under the illusion that they hadn't recognised him.

"He be in great peril!" Nubescu told them, looking scared.

"Woah!" Xephos gasped.

"What!?" Honeydew burst.

"Gods! Maybe these carnies _are _evil, and have been deliberately holding us up while Knight Peculier's been waiting for us!"

"This has all been a big distraction!" Honeydew said angrily.

"Jah must go!" Nubescu insisted. "Jah must go to his aid!"

"Where are we supposed to go?" asked Honeydew. "Just a minor problem."

"He said Verigan's Hold, didn't he?" asked Xephos.

"Where is Verigan's Hold, Madame?" asked Honeydew.

"That is a really good question." Xephos said, looking about incase someone tried to jump them. The Carnival was giving him the creeps.

"Verigan's? it be..." Nubescu turned an led them towards a stone path that led past her stall and away from the Carnival up a hill, and from the foot of this hill you could see just off to the south-east was a great keep with tan-tiled roofs and light grey stone walls.

"It be dat castle over dere." Nubescu pointed out.

as soon as Xephos saw it, he realised it was the castle he'd seen from The Skull's slide, and there would've been a clear view of it from the Carnival, only the tall tents had blocked it from their eyes.

"Thanks, Nubescu!" Xephos said as he set off down the path towards the hill which led up to Verigan's Hold, only around a minute's walk away.

"Thank you!" said Honeydew also. "May the spirits be with you!"

As Honeydew set off after Xephos into the night, they heard Mr. Banjo behind them.

"It's not a problem! We're all about clear directions at the Carnivale Del Banjo!"

_Author's Notes:_

_I had to work my but to get this one out on time, but I hope that it isn't too dull. I though that the Test Of Strength may have gotten a bit tedious._


	14. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter14

Chapter 14: Tale of The Sands.

"To Verigan's Hold!" Xephos ran after Honeydew up the short stairway that led up the dark hillside, at the top they found themselves on a large flagstone clearing before the castle of Verigan's Hold, that would most likely have been used to hold markets on. In the center of the large plateau there was a large tile sliding game, probably set up by the Carnival to drag people back to the fair as they left.

"Fuck the games." growled Honeydew as he passed it by. "Fuck the games, Xephos! We've got to go in this castle!"

They looked up at the splendor of Verigan's Hold, the whole keep was surrounded by a high cobblestone wall, that continued to extend past the tall light grey towers and tan slate roofs of the Hold, defending perhaps some. Oddly, the wall, as it passed the castle, doubled in hight, and the crenelations faced inside the walls as though it was trying to keep something in, and not out. It extended far into the night and every so often a large beacon tower rose out of the wall, supported by large buttress towers propping up against it.

"Okay, let's go." Xephos said, looking up at the walls with worry. "Let's go, let's go..."

He followed Honeydew up a set off slate stairs to the main gate of Verigan's Hold. The sturdy, if not slightly rusted, portcullass was raised, and the tall studded doors were ajar, brooking more worry from Xephos.

"We can't be distracted." Honeydew said as he reached out for the doors, then noticed a finely carved sign mounted on the right wall. "_Verigan's Hold. "Sand cannot dull my blade."- Verigan Antioch."_ he read, looking at Xephos. "It's a bit strange..."

Xephos walked forwards and pushed open both of the doors, leading to a large courtyard with a large fountain in the middle. Opposite them the castle of Verigan's Hold stood tall and beautiful, it's squat central keep was shining in the moonlight, it's many large windows were clearly not intended for defensive properties, and the four main towers, two shorter stockier at the front and the two longer thinner of the four at the rear seemed lacking in arrow slots or any other defensive properties.

"Wow...this place is awesome." Xephos looked up at the spires in wonderment as he walked towards the fountain in the center and cupped a few handfuls of water into his mouth that he gulped down appreciatedly. He looked up and saw that mounted on a stone pedestal was a huge stone war-hammer, and on a plaque beneath it were engraved the words:

"_Water! Blessed water! How it cools my sun-cracked skin!"_

_-1st Templar Verigan Antioch after the Battle of Tulip._

"Where do we go?" asked Xephos.

Honeydew stopped ogling at the war-hammer and turned to the front of the keep.

"Oh? There's a door over here." he told Xephos, heading towards the right of the large two-storied building, where a plain looking door was. As he neared, Honeydew could see through the door, a small man.

"There's a man in here!" he said as Xephos came after him.

Honeydew pushed open the door and the little man looked up. He may have been short, but he had an air of power to him, not unlike Peculier had. His hair was steel grey and so thin that it seemed that a gust would blow it off of his deeply lined face, browned from long exposure to the sun. He wore a sand-coloured scarf about it, covering his head from the nose down, and a tan surcoat with a large red templar cross adorning it.

"Hello there!" Honeydew called.

His eyes were dark and slightly clouded and as they entered he lowered the heavy pike that he leaned upon, but after a moment, he seemed to be at rest, and raised it, leaning his weight upon the spear's thick shaft.

"Hello strangers!" he trilled, in an ancient voice that somehow also seemed very full of life. "My Nephew hoped that you would come!"

"Hi!" Xephos said in a voice more confident than he felt, as he eyed the pike cautiously.

"Nephew?" Honeydew asked as he entered the large room that seemed to take up literally the entire keep. "Who?"

"I am Adaephon." He introduced briefly, looking tired. Xephos relised that he must've been waiting for them all night. "There is no time to explain, follow me to the battlements."

Adaephon turned and began to hobble to the left side of the room past a long dining table and several chairs seated before a great banner on the back wall of a blood red cross on a field of yellow.

"Where's he going?" Honeydew asked as they followed Adaephon to a stairway that led up to a mesanine floor. Xephos noticed as they passed the table that everything was covered in a reasonable layer of dust, and the castle seemed rather empty for one of it's size.

"No one is here but Adaephon..." he said as the followed the Templar up the stairs to the mesanine floor that pressed up against the windows of the second floor of the keep.

"Just do as he say's for now." Honeydew urged, even though he was suspicious of this man, he didn't like how he covered his face.

"This way!" Adaephon called, his pike clonking as he led them back to the right side of the castle to a doorway that apparently led to the battlements.

"He's obviously been waiting for us, hasn't he?" Xephos said as he followed Adaephon into what would seem to be the large squat tower on the right-hand side of Verigan's Hold.

"Follow." Adaphon instructed as he turned to his left and began to climb a set of stairs that led to the second floor of the tower.

"He was probably watching us, wondering what the hell we were doing pissing around in the carnival?" Honeydew winced as he followed Xephos up the stairs. At he next floor Adaephon led them out onto the flat roof of the keep, snaking around many raised skylights.

In many places on the roof there were large drifts of sand that seemed to have come from nowhere. Honeydew kicked up a cloud of it.

"Sand." he rumbled. "Sand is never a good sign. I don't like it."

"Where did it come from?" asked Xephos looking about, but a cloud had shifted in front of the moon, and all Xephos could see was cast from the light of the torches through the skylights.

"Heroes."

Honeydew and Xephos looked over and saw Adaephon standing at the edge of crenelations in between the right-hand towers. He beckoned them over, and pointed out into the darkness beyond.

"What is it?" asked Honeydew.

"A moment..." Adaephon looked skywards. "Notch will lift the veil..."

As he said it, the cloud in front of the moon shifted and the scene before them was lit up.

"Umm..." Xephos looked ahead. "Holy shit, son."

Before them stretched a huge expanse of sand, sweeping into dunes the size of mountains and carved into impossible shapes of arches and waves. Every so often the desert was interrupted by a cactus as tall as a tree with wicked spines.

Xephos looked to the south and saw the wall they'd seen from the outside extending far into the distance, and it continued from the east of the castle, seemingly hell bent on containing this emmense desert.

"It's just a massive desert..." Honeydew looked about in awe, following Adaephon down a small of stairs on the outside of the keep to where the sand rose up in a dune to meet the stairway.

"You look awed...but what you see before you, is no ordinary desert." Templar Adaephon said, leaning on his spear.

"Oh great." Honeydew looked about with unease.

"This sand...is a disease..." Adaephon wheezed. "A plague...with terrible power."

"Gah!" Honeydew leapt back and climbed to the top of the keep. "I wish you told me that before I stood on it!"

"But this place looks amazing!" Xephos stared off down the wall.

"I could've been playin' 'round in the sand, making castles in the sand, eating it, smearing it all over my face..."

"Short contact is no danger to a man as stout as yourself." Adaephon said reassuringly.

Honeydew had began dragging down several planks of wood that had been lying near the steps at the stairs and lying them across the sand as a bridge. "I think you mean dwarf." he said in annoyance.

"I think what he meant about the sand is metaphorical." Xephos told his friend.

"This wall here..." Adaephon hobbled forward, pointing at the high wall. "If it were not for this wall, the Sands would spread like wild-vine...choking the land till it dies gasping for life. But enough talk, I am getting older every day."

"Where is Old Peculier?" asked Xephos, suspicious that he might've had something to do with this. He turned to Honeydew, who was still running planks out across the sand towrds them despite Adaephon's promise. "Do you think that this has anything to do with the sand that we found outside the portals?" he asked. After a few moments before of wondering, he realised that he'd seen the cacti before beneath the crumbling ruin before the portal.

Honeydew shrugged.

"Your friend went to mend a breach in The Wall," Adaephon cast his hand down The Wall's length. "A serious breach that threaten sour safety."

"So The Wall stops the spread of the sand which is like a disease, there's a breach in The Wall that Old Peculier went to mend-actually, I think that I can see it..." Honeydew peered though the moonlight to where a couple of leagues down The Wall a huge gap ran down it's face.

"Oh right..." Xephos saw it too. It looked quite serious, it would take a man many weeks to repair without the aid of magic. Nubescu's warning seemed to make sense now, Peculier was putting himself at risk to hold back the sands, which if he was exposed to for long enough may kill him.

"Do we fix this breach?" asked Honeydew to Adaephon.

"If you wish to see him, turn left out of the main gates and follow The Wall south." Adaephon responded.

"Alright," Xephos said, walking up the stairs.

"Okay then." Honeydew replied, following.

"I recommend seeing to Peculier before long, he may need your help." Adaephon called after them as he struggle up the stairs.

"We need to see him." Honeydew nodded, helping the old templar up.

"Right!" Xephos agreed. "Let's go!"

They turned to leave, but Adaephon called out to them.

"But before you leave," he said. "if you are unfamiliar with our history, you should check out the castle archives over here." Adaephon shuffled over to the left-hand twin of the squat towers.

"Oh, a history lesson?" Honeydew sighed as the old Templar pushed the door open.

"Here are the archives..." Adaephosn walked inside the dark room, only lit by the occasional glowstone lamp. The entire room was surrounded by a ring of bookshelves, crammed with old tomes and scrolls. This room too was covered in dust, save for a wide area on a table in the center of the room which seemed to have been swept clean by Adaephon, or maybe Peculier.

"I know this place inside out." Adaephon said, hobbling over to one of the shelves and withdrew a thick volume bound in tan-dyed leather with the red cross of the Templars gracing the cover. He turned and handed it to Xephos, and motioned to the table. "I will leave you to read it alone." Adaephon said as he headed for the door. "You are welcome to sleep here and regain your strength, before you leave."

"Thank you Templar." Honeydew took the book from Xephos and laid it on the table as Adaephon shut the door behind him.

Honeydew opened the cover and on the page before him was the book's title:

_The Tale Of The Sands._

"The Tale Of The Sands?" Honeydew read, reaching for the next page. But as soon as the words left his mouth the glowstone dimmed and there was a rumbling an ethereal sigh from the book. The next page snapped open of it's own accord and suddenly a disc of blue light faded into reality and hovered over the book.

"Whoah! What?!" Honeydew leapt backwards.

"What's happening?!" asked Xephos looking towards the door.

"_The Tale Of The Sands." _It was Adaephon's voice being emitted from the book, although somewhat younger. As it spoke the title was rewritten in the blue light with a flowing cursive, and the book began to emit a blue mist that faintly shimmered as it floated out onto the floor like a fog.

"Is this supposed to happen?" Xephos looked about.

"I don't know!" Honeydew yelled.

"_One hundred years ago, there was a summer that never ended..." _Adaephon's voice spoke.

The mist that now covered the entire room rose into many shapes and suddenly all around them it took the form of Mistral City. The mist had painted them back into Mistral City, but them were floating between the islands.

"What the hell?" breathed Honeydew as the he looked about.

The only thing in the room that remained unchanged was the book, even though they could both feel the ground beneath their feet.

"We're in Mistral..." Xephos looked about the room as they floated through the mirage. But then he realised something was not right in the city. All of the islands and the City below was covered in a thick layer of sand, the same sand as in the desert outside.

The scene shifted to the streets below Mistral, where few people walked the streets, and those who did bore heavy shawls about their faces to protect them from the sun, which even in the simulation seemed harshly bright and hot.

"_...Raw heat parched the farmlands, and the wells ran dry..."_ the Voice spoke again. Strangely, everything that moved seemed blurred, like a shadow of what had once been there only to be taken by the wind.

The mist shifted and remasterialised inside a building in Mistral City. It would once have been a warehouse, but where crates and barrels would've been there were now rows upon rows of stretchers, upon nearly everyone a person was lying on, thin and too weak to move. Honeydew walked over to one of the beds, and saw that there was no human there, but what seemed to be a metal-man, turned red from rust.

"Xephos look at this!" he called, but then the voice spoke and the metal-man faded with the rest of the room.

"_...The People of the land began to die, of hunger and thirst..."_

The scene was now the fields outside of Mistral City, the Old Watchtower in the distance, but the fields were covered in the same coarse sand which covered the treetops. All around them dry and rotting corpses of livestock were being buried by the sand, one ox was meekly struggling before them, then sunk to it's knees and fell to the ground where it stirred no more.

"_...Animals were blinded by blistering sand, blowing waist deep across the land..." _Adaephon's voice spoke and there was a white light as the mist rearranged into the Fountains of Mistral City, where the two now stood amoungst a small gathering centered around a huge bear of a man wearing white surcoat adorned with a red cross of the Templars. On his face he had grown a thick black beard that covered most of his face, and across his left eye, white and glassy next to it's deep indigo twin, there was a pink scar that reached from the temple of his bald head to beneath his nostrils.

The huge man spoke something and raised into the air his War-Gavel; a huge war-hammer with two emmence flat sides on it's head. A mute cheer went through the crowd as the voice spoke.

"_...Led by a legendary hero; Verigan, the people of our world began to fight back, building..."_

The white light of the transition glowed again as the room shifted.

"_...The Wall..."_

The scene now floated about The Wall, but in a previous life. The wall here was young and keen, the towers were all manned. The Wall now was merely a memory of this.

"_...to encase the sand, and halt the spread of the desert..."_

"Look!" Honeydew pointed to between two towers, where Verigan stood with a smaller man, wearing a corinthian helm over his head, looking strangely familiar.

"_...But an ancient terror rose rose up from the sands, and threat end to destroy everything..."_

As Adaephon's voice spoke again, they were suddenly standing in the middle of the desert as Verigan and the helmed man ran past them away from The Wall and out into the desert.

"_...Verigan Antioch and his son; Karpath Antioch, slew the evil monster and sealed it away under the desert..."_

As Verigan and Karpath vanished over a dune, Xephos and Honeydew prepared themselves for the blue mist to shift once again.

But this time the scene did not change like the others, the sun accelerated across the sky and as it neared the horizon on the other side of the desert and the sky turned red as blood, a lone figure limped over the dunes from where he'd disappeared. It was Karpath, but he was alone, and a wound wept scarlet tears from his shoulder while he slowly continued to the wall.

"_...In the final battle, Verigan was killed, and Karpath gravely wounded..." _Adaephon spoke in a voice thick with emotion as Karpath's ragged memory limped past the two.

"_...After recovery, Karpath founded the Crimson Cross, and established the Templars, incase the threat ever returned..."_

The mist now moulded into The Wall, but now the guards were all bedecked in white surcoats and doublets with red crosses upon the breasts.

"_...What happened next, is still shrouded in mystery..." _Adaephon narrated as the mist painted a picture around them of a small well carved sandstone tomb, it's wide windows open to the dune in sat atop. In the center of the room there lay a small sepulchre with Verigan's huge likeness carved into it's surface, stone War-Gavel upon his breast. Karpath stood as the sun set across the desert, the shadow of the dunes hiding his face as he laid a bouquet of scarlet roses on his father's grave. He looked up at the words chiseled into the stone at Verigans feet, reading:

_Verigan._

_Here he shall_

_rest eternal_

He then turned and left the building.

"_...Less than a month after his return, Karpath vanished without a trace, and was never seen again..."_

The mist began to recceed from the walls and ceiling and towards the book.

"_...The Templars await his return...Templar Adaephon."_ The book signed off, and with a sigh the spectral fog rushed back into the book and it slammed shut.

There was a moment of awed silence within the archives as Xephos and Honeydew took a moment to get their bearings.

"Woah..." Honeydew gasped. "That was really weird...Xephos, that was really strange." The dwarf picked up the book and took it back to it's slot. "It was like I had this epic kind of vision around me."

"Me too." Xephos looked about in amazement, wondering how many other books had this property.

"It was beautiful, it was amazing!" Honeydew headed towards the door. "I wish that happened every time I read something."

Xephos snorted and followed him out of the archives as they started to head back out towards the entrance to the castle. It was nearing dawn, and even through they were both dead tired, they felt the need to see Peculier.

"Since when did you read?" He asked.

"Now you know why I don't!" Honeydew chuckled. "So Adaephon wrote it?"

"I think so, or spoke it. I don't know how old he is in that case."

"Well, this was, what, a hundred years ago? So he's one hundred and twenty years old at the very least. Maybe even a century and a half!"

"Looks like we have no excuse for calling Knight Peculier Old Peculier now."

"Gods you're right! I'm beginning to think that he's one of the youngest folks around here. This turns everything I know on it's head, and I don't like it." Honeydew said as he and Xephos pushed open the gates and waved back at Adaephon who called to them from the door of the keep. They continued out of the gate and turned to the south and followed The Wall towards where Peculier was supposedly repairing the breach.

**HE** could feel a disturbance in the energies of the world. The Two were approaching like moths to a flame, and soon they would burn like their friend. As **HE** stood **HE **could hear the soft hissing of the Bursting One and the moans of the Dead One at his heels. **HE **could smell fear in them, but fear was good. Fear made them **HIS**. A ray of light cut across **HIS** darkness and **HE** blinked in annoyance. With a thought** HE** caused a twister of sand to spin about** HIM **and his creations, spiriting them away from the eyes of the sun. **HE **had them now.


	15. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter15

Chapter 15: Battle at The Breach.

"Oh, I Think I can see him! He's up there!" Xephos pointed above the wild treetops to the top of an old watchtower, this one seemed even older and in more disrepair than the one outside of Mistral City. As he shaded his eyes from the morning sun with his hand, he could see faintly at the top of the crumbling tower a figure in grey cloth lying against the crenelations. "He's at the top of the tower! It's Peculier!" Xephos shouted.

"Aha! There he is!" Honeydew laughed, following the overgrown path that ran along the foot of The Wall.

They had set off as the morning sun rose after eating some of their left over supplies from their packs, which were getting low. After hardly five minutes they had seen the watchtower in the distance, it was a spindly building that looked as though it would fall at any given moment, but was nearly as tall as The Wall, which stood at a hundred and fifty yards tall. It had taken them the most of the morning, yet as they continued to approach they'd noticed that the tower was in ruin, and several giant spiders were climbing around the outside. Honeydew had stopped here to re-equip his diamond greaves that he still had in his pack, anticipating impending conflict.

As they continued to follow the over-grown path they pushed through a low hanging tangle of vines they reached the end of the path. It ended in a dark culvert entering the side of a hill. It was covered by a thick iron grate half eaten by rust, and above it hung a sign reading:

_TUNNEL ACCESS. Crimson Cross 22nd West Arch Buttress._

_**WARNING:** Closed due to cave-in._

"What is this?" Honeydew asked as Xephos read it. He could see that behind the grating there was a large wall of fallen rock from the tunnel roof. "I don't know what this means."

"We'll have to go around." Xephos stepped off of the path and began to push through the scrub up to the hill top toward where the foot of the tower was. Xephos cautiously drew his sword to fen doff any of the spiders they'd seen as Honeydew followed him to the hilltop where the trees stopped and the tower met the earth. The tower was next to the breach in The Wall here, and now they could see the sheer scale of it. The Wall had a huge chunk taken out of it large enough to fit a house in, and the sand had spilled through the gap where it pressed up against the bottom of the hill and the foot of it.

"Is this the guard tower?" Honeydew asked, eyeing a couple of huge spiders at the foot of the tower, they were never aggressive in daylight, but he wasn't going to give them a chance to get behind him.

"Is he all right?" Xephos asked, looking up at the top of the tower, ignoring the vertigo.

"I don't know, it looks as though a creeper blew up here." Honeydew nodded at the foot of the tower where a crater of reasonable size was located.

At the top of the tower they heard a groan of pain.

"Oh gods he's moaning in pain." Xephos yelled, moving to a rise in the hill between the tower and The Wall.

As Honeydew followed him, one of the spiders lunged at him, he only had just enough time to side step in and draw his sword as it leapt again. The Dwarf dodged and kicked the spider onto it's back as he stabbed through it's thorax with a wet noise. He drew the blade out as Xephos looked at the other spiders on the tower. They weren't attacking, but stood staring at them from the wall, glowering at the two.

"Gods, there are spiders everywhere." Xephos muttered as another two appeared around the side of the tower, investigating the noise.

"Why are there so many spiders-"

"Peculier!" Xephos cried, waving upwards.

Knight Peculier had dragged himself to the edge of the tower and was looking down at them from above on the high turret, he seemed to be in pain.

"Are you well?" asked Xephos as Honeydew looked up.

"Heroes it is good to-" Peculier began when Xephos was struck in his side by an arrow that sent him to the ground. Peculier looked to where the arrow was sent, and saw the assailant. "Ambush!" he yelled hoarsely in utter terror.

Xephos shimmied beneath the rise at the hill top. "What was that?" he cringed as he pulled the black arrow from where it was embedded in his chain-mail. The head was made of solid obsidian, and sharp as a honed dagger, the realisation dawned on him that he'd seen these arrows once before.

Honeydew headed for cover behind the rise, but as he approached he glanced up at the breach and saw _Him._

"Oh my Gods! Look!" Honeydew froze and pointed as Xephos looked over the ridge, fearing what he may see. "Look over there!"

Xephos' fears were confirmed. Standing on the sand slip spilling through the breach stood Israphel, bedecked in his robes black and ragged like shadows as it wind funneling through the breach cracked it like a bullwhip as it glinted with three golden brooches tracing the chest seem. This was the first time the two had ever seen Israphel up close to truly define any of his features, and the view was no improvement. His head was an egg, bald, white an clammy like a drowned man's. He had two huge red eyes that wrapped around to where his ear should've been, and shore like rubies conceived in blood. But his mouth was the most harrowing thing about him. Shaped like a "Y" turned on it's head, it branched from the top of what would be another man's nasal ridge to either side of his chin, and gaped open like a wound, unable to shut, and behind it, totally black.

"Oh. Fuck." Xephos swore. He then noticed that Israphel was drawing a bow, a horrifying bow that seemed to be made from human vertebrae with long, thin knife-like blades protruding from along the length. He grabbed Honeydew and pulled him down behind cover just as the arrow flew past his head.

"Did Israphel just shoot me?" Xephos asked as he unhooked his pocked great-helm and slid it onto his head. "He's here! Israphel is here!"

He pulled out his own bow and nocked an arrow into the slot, then peered over the rise to try and aim a shot at Israphel. But as he drew back the bowstring something moved towards Israphel form behind The Wall. The Zombie Boss lumbered behind it's lord, a great lumbering mass of flesh sewn together, standing at nearly ten feet tall, bearing a stone axe the size of a man's torso.

"Shit Honeydew, he's got brought allies." Xephos rose to loose his arrow, but as he aimed Israphel let another of his fly, and it caught Xephos in the shoulder, sending his own arrow far into the desert.

As Xephos fell next to Honeydew he could already feel the arrowhead digging through his armor and into his arm. He grunted in pain as he pulled the obsidian head from his arm the spoke to Honeydew, who seemed to have lost his tongue.

"What the hell? What do we do?!" Honeydew said, regaining his ability of speech.

As they looked over the rise Israphel aimed up at the watchtower and shot at Peculier, who only managed to move in the nick of time before the arrow embedded itself into the solid rock that he'd ducked behind. Xephos watched as Israphel summoned another out of thin air and prepared to fire at Peculier again. With another arrow in his bow, Xephos stood and shot again. Israphel saw him stand and as the arrow flew towards him he swatted it out of the air with a clawed hand that left behind a trail of black smoke. Xephos stood shocked as Israphel rounded on him and shot at him. Xephos felt the arrow impact his helm and deflect after leaving an unhealthy cut along his cheek through the solid steel.

"Dammit, we have to get closer!" Xephos said as he fell behind cover with Honeydew who was loading his crossbow. "We can't risk another ranged attack, those arrows are dynamite!"

"Didn't you say he had company with him?" Honeydew asked as he counted his quarrels, he only had enough for a few shots.

"Yeah, that dirty great zombie with a fucking big axe."

"The same one we met in Israphel's underground castle last year?"

"More or less, this one looks a bit different though, like the same recipe, but with different ingredients."

"Is he with Israphel now?"

"I don't think so, when I last looked, he wasn't there." Xephos looked at Honeydew. "You don't think he's snuck around and is heading this way?"

"He could be."

"Shit, we need to get closer."

Suddenly Honeydew remembered something, and the colour drained from his face.

"Wait..." he said. "If the Zombie Boss is here, then that must mean-"

Before he could finish the sentence, the section of The Wall to their left exploded, causing the entire Wall to shake. As the dust cleared the damage was apparent, another hole had been blasted into The Wall, this one hardly high enough high enough to drive a horse-drawn cart through, but still of size enough to be a large problem.

"Oh Jebus!" Xephos cried.

As they stared through the hole, they saw a spattering of tan very creeper-like goo and exoskeleton. Evidently, Creeper Boss was just as explosive as he had been.

"Well that's him gone." Xephos said.

Even as he spoke though, the mutilated remnants of Creeper Boss' body began to move towards some kind of invisible force, like being pulled by magnet.

"This can't be good." Honeydew muttered as they began to form a mound of dark tan gunk, which began to bubble into the sand-coloured bipedal creeper form of the Creeper Boss.

"Oh shit!" Honeydew yelled as it got off it's hands and knees then stared at them with hollow dark eyes, punctuated only by two pricks of red light that gave the creature a disturbing intelligence.

"_**SSSSsssssssSSSSsssss..."**_ it hissed as it leapt out of the tunnel and into the desert.

"Fuck this, I'm going for it." Honeydew said, leaping over the cover and firing three bolts at Israphel before running towards him, drawing his sword. Israphel had no time to fire off a shot, but as the three bolts sped towards him he spun his bow in a circle before him, breaking al three in an ultra fast rotation. Honeydew had reached the bottom of the hill and was running up the sand slip. Israphel summoned another arrow and made to shoot at Honeydew's unprotected chest, but Xephos saw his chance. As Israphel drew back his bowstring he released his own arrow. It sped towards Israphel and punched through his left wrist, nocking his aim and sending the black arrow into the woods.

Not a cry escaped Israphel's deformed mouth as he stood there. Not a drop of blood spilled, in it's stead, sand crumbled from the arrow hole, and in response, the sand on which he stood rose to meet it, resealing the wound.

Honeydew gave him no time to recover, reaching the top of the sand spill and swinging out at him with his short-sword. Israphel blocked the strike with the bone shaft of his bow, catching the blade of Honeydew's sword between two of the knife-like spikes protruding from the length. With a twist of the bow Israphel jerked Honeydew's sword to the side and sent him onto the ground. Honeydew managed to block just as Israphel swung his bow at him, intending to slice Honeydew open with it's jagged edges. He blocked another and got to his feet, and took another swipe at Israphel, but he blocked swiftly and struck out at the dwarf, who tried to evade but still suffered to puncture wounds to his torso.

"Ahh! Ow!" he yelled retreating back towards the hill as Israphel slipped behind The Wall while Xephos took shots at him, when a throaty roar came from the gap in The Wall next to Xephos. He looked over to see the hulking mass that was the Zombie Boss staggering through the hole, hefting it's huge axe and slobbering from it's raw red mouth that was lacking in a bottom jaw.

"Oh crap." Xephos swore as the Zombie Boss began to climb up the hill towards them. Xephos took off towards it at a run, drawing his sword. As he headed downhill towards the beast, he noticed through his vision slits that it wore a badly torn and stretched Templar curais across it's table sized chest. It had seen him now, and raised it's axe to cleave Xephos in two as he sprinted towards where it stood under a small ledge. Xephos leapt off the ledge as it's axe hammered into the ground and stuck there. He sailed through the air and landed on the Zombie Boss's bench sized left shoulder, he hooked his left arm around it's neck and swung onto it's huge back, stabbing he sword deep into it's back and out barrel chest through the other side.

The Zombie Boss moaned loudly as it groped wildly for Xephos as he slid off it's back drawing his sword out as he hit the ground, spinning and slicing both of it's archilies tendons, then ducked out of the way as it fell with a wail and a loud slam. Without waiting for the zombie's rotting brain to comprehend what had just happened, Xephos leapt onto his chest and put his sword through it's mouth and stopped it comprehending things altogether. The Zombie Boss died with a gurgling noise and a cough of blood onto Xephos's green surcoat, which by now was covered in tears and rips.

"Holy shit, I haven't seen you fight like that in years!" Honeydew yelled as he arrived at the bottom of the slope where the Zombie Boss's axe was still embedded in the earth. "But we're so out of our depth here. Israphel is damned good at melee, and that bow is wicked." he nodded at his two wounds.

"There's also the Creeper Boss here, and he doesn't die from his explosions like last time." Xephos panted as he looked towards the hole in The Wall next to them, where on queue the two legged tan creeper now stood.

"Speak the Devil and he shall appear." Honeydew said, running forwards as the creeper began to hiss. The dwarf punched it in the chest, sending it flying back into the desert, and canceling it's explosion, when a black arrow sped past his ear by only an inch.

"Shit, Israphel's there!" Honeydew yelled as he headed back towards the tower past Xephos, who simply stood. "What are you doing?!" Honeydew yelled as the Creeper Boss reappeared in the hole hissing again. Without warning, Xephos leapt at it, tackling it back through the hole and into the desert. He could feel the thump of on of Israphel's arrows hitting it in the back, as he aimed for Xephos, and the Creeper Boss died with a mangle sort of cough.

"Die!" Xephos yelled as he rolled off the corpse of the Creeper Boss and charged towards Israphel who stood on the dune above him. He had and arrow drawn back, but before he could fire, Xephos swung up with his sword knocking the bow to the side and swung at it's owner.

"Die Israphel, you bastard!"

Israphel spun and dodged the slice, lashing out with his spiked bow, Xephos blocked and kicked Israphel out further away from The Wall. He rolled with the kick, loading his bow and firing a shot that Xephos dodged as he stabbed at Israphel, catching him on the side, causing him to bleed sand. Israphel hissed and raked the bow across Xephos' helm, gouging great rents in it.

"Damn it!" Xephos yelled jumping at Israphel again, but Israphel suddenly leapt into the air, turning into a comet of black smoke. It trailed through the air and further into the desert looking like a blob of ink dropped in water. He landed under an impossible arch of sand the size of a large hill not far from Xephos, who started after him. Israphel once again flew off out into the desert further, egging him on.

"Jebus!" Honeydew cried as he came behind Xephos. "What's gotten into you today? You're fighting like a maniac!"

"We have to get after him." Xephos started to descend down the dune they stood on, towards the sand arch Israphel had stood at before. "But...Maybe we shouldn't be chasing after him, Honeydew." he said, beginning to worry. His armor was in terrible condition and Peculier was in worse. "I don't think this is wise."

"No, I don't think it is wise either."

"We're out of our depth here." Xephos began to head back towards The Wall. "This is his territory."

"Let's just go back. Let's just go back!" Honeydew began to run towards the main breach next to the smaller hole made by Creeper Boss.

"We're not retreating, we're advancing in a different direction." Xephos commented.

"We need to check on Knight Peculier." Honeydew said as they passed through the breach.

"I think it's a guard tower. It looks a lot like the one near Mistral City." Honeydew observed as the reached the tower Peculier was in at the bottom of the sand slip.

"It's quite noisy here..." Xephos protested as they got closer. There were spiders crawling all over the tower but for now they seemed cowed, and only hissed at the, there was also a very distinct sound of a zombie groaning. "Why do you think that spider attack us before?"

"Israphel's being here probably agro'd it." Honeydew walked up to where the door had been boarded up and there were several old signs hung upon the wall. "But they're probably scared after they saw you go totally ape-shit, kill both bosses and scare off Israphel."

"I get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of him yet."

"Maybe..." Honeydew stepped up to the sign, but there was only one word legible on the rotted wood. _"Condemned."_

"Spiders!" Xephos yelled.

As he and Honeydew drew their weapons three spider dropped from the wall of the tower and made to attack them.

"How many do you want?" Xephos asked as they stepped back.

"You take two." Honeydew said, as he slashed a spider clean in half. Xephos ran forwards and punched a spider back into the tower wall the stamped on another's head just as the other one leapt back and he impaled it on his sword.

"I fucking hate spiders." Honeydew swore.

"How do we get to him?" asked Xephos, referring to Peculier. "What's the quickest way up?"

"I think we have to break the door down." Honeydew said.

"Okay then." Xephos took Honeydew's axe and brought the rotting door down in a few strokes, only to find that Peculier must've tried to barricade the entrance with what he cold find in the tower. There were rocks and old barrels piled high on the spiral stairs heading upwards, and as they continued downwards there was another giant spider waiting, and flickering lights that whispered of a monster spawner.

"Gods." Xephos said as he stood back to let Honeydew through. "This is a mess."

He heard Honeydew yelp as the spider jumped him, and a second later what sounded like the spider's head being squished.

"You all right?" asked Xephos, looking in to see Honeydew heading down the stairs to the lights. "Do you want me stand guard out here?"

"Ballocks!" Honeydew ran back up the stairs, followed by a zombie, who he managed to coax out of the tower and into the daylight where he and Xephos quickly dispatched it.

They headed down the stairs where there was a zombie spawner. It took awhile but eventually they managed to destroy the spawner, and now in the knowledge that they would not have any zombies sneaking up on them, set themselves to clearing the rubble from the stairway heading upwards. as they began, they heard Knight Peculier above them, groaning in agony.

"Why is Peculier making zombie noises? I do not like this at all." Xephos said as Honeydew smashed a barrel with his pick.

"NO!" Honeydew yelled, breaking through a boulder in their way. "I don't want him fucking turning, like Granny Bacon did."

"He looked okay though. He didn't look like Granny Bacon did."

Peculier groaned again.

"We're coming, Knight Peculier!" Xephos called up.

It took nearly two hours to clear their way up to where a half of the wall of the tower had fallen away, leaving what was left of the stairway exposed and the rest of the tower twice as unstable than it normally would've been, there was even a scraggly tree growing out of the rubble. Slowly they cleared the way up the rest of the tower and nearly an hour later they reached the roof after clearing the way and several spider attacks.

The roof of the tower was very windy, and as they looked about they saw Knight Peculier, lying against one of the remaining merlons, under the shelter of another squat tree that had managed to grow on the ruins. His eyes were closed.

"There he is!" Honeydew yelled, carefully picking his way over to the old knight. "Peculier!"

Peculier opened his eyes as Honeydew knelt next to him, and lifted his father's corinthian. Xephos removed his own ruined helm and tossed it over the edge of the tower.

"It's us!" Xephos said.

"Heroes?" Peculier groaned, attempting to sit straight, but Honeydew held him down. "Rrrgh...It's good to see you."

"Gods, what happened to you?" Xephos asked. "Are you okay?"

Peculier looked haggard. His stubble had grown into nearly a full beard, and his armor was ripped in many places, including his shoulder where an arrow was still stuck.

"Why were you making zombie noises?" asked Honeydew, inspecting the arrow wound.

"I don't think he's going to turn, he hasn't attacked us yet."

Peculier looked confused, and pulled himself up straighter, despite Honeydew's arguments. "I was coming to mend The Wall, when I was attacked by skeletons. So I took shelter in this abandoned tower."

"Mend The Wall?" asked Xephos, looking over the edge at the huge breach. "Unless there's some strong magic here, how did you think to do this by yourself?"

"These were no ordinary skeletons, either." Honeydew said as he pulled out the arrow. Peculier groaned in anguish, and Honeydew pressed down on the wound. Thankfully the chisel shaped bodkin head of the arrow had not caused any additional damage being extracted. "Look at the arrow. Tell me you don't recognise it."

The arrow was black, the shaft was blackwood, the flights were feather os the raven, and the arrow head of obsidian.

"This is just like Israphel's." Xephos snapped it in two and threw it as hard as he was able off the tower. "He must have supplied them to the skeletons that attacked you."

"Do you have any bandages?" Honeydew asked distractedly as Xephos reached into his bag and gave him the bandages that Lysander had once used to cover his rope-cut hands.

Honeydew took the lengths of fabric and set to binding Peculier's shoulder as best he could.

"I don't want you to "turn"." Honeydew told Peculier. "Don't you go turning."

Peculier began to resume his tale.

"By night, all manner of horrors came flooding out of the desert. But we must mend The Wall, lest they return for another attack."

"We must mend The Wall!" Honeydew said, helping Peculier to his feet as they all began to descend the stairs. "Only one problem; how do we do that?"

"Be careful coming down." Xephos warned as he took the lead.

"There are strong magics within The Wall, and they will help." Peculier answered as they came to where half of the tower had fallen away. "And thankfully, the supporting buttresses is undamaged." he pointed out of the gap in the walls to two thick towers either side of the tower they were in. They both had a thick wooden and stone beam coming out of them and pressing up against The Wall.

"Okay then..." Honeydew responded.

It was well into the afternoon when they reached the bottom of the tower, and Peculier seemed to have all of his faculties as they walked out onto the sand spill, which he was able to do unaided.

"So this is where The Wall should be." Honeydew said as he stood between the gap, looking up at the hight of the breach. "Where all of this sand has poured through. She's a pretty big job."

"I guess we just have to start digging then." Xephos said, and Honeydew's expression immediately lit up as he unstrapped his shovel from his pack.

Xephos sighed.

"This looks like a big job." he said.

"Start clearing the sand," Peculier instructed as he turned and began to walk towards the buttress tower to the right of The Wall. "I shall open the supply room."

"Oh?" Xephos followed after him down the huge sand slip.

"Hey, Xephos?" Honeydew as he began to dig. Xephos turned around to face him as the dwarf suddenly started singing a familiar tune:

_I'm a dwarf,_

_and I'm digging a hole._

_Diggy Diggy Hole!_

"I'm diggin' a hole." he finished in a monotone.

"Amazing." Xephos sighed. "Also how much day do we have left?" he asked as he glanced up at the sun, which was heading towards the horizon next to the west end of The Wall. "Not much."

He followed Peculier in the dying daylight as Honeydew began another verse, to the foot of the buttress tower where a door was bolted shut. Peculier produced a key and opened the door to a dark room where there were a few large chests bolted to the walls and a tall cabinet next to the door. These were unlocked by Peculier and inside the chests there were several egg-sized rune stones, and in the cabinet there were half a dozen stout looking shovels-like objects, but they had a sharp angular point and a serrated edge that made them look like a deadly weapon.

"Wow, there is a lot of stuff in here." Xephos said, picking up one of the strange shovels and looked over at Peculier as he filled his pockets with several of the runestones. "What are these things, though?"

"These runes we can use to heal The Wall faster, and take one of those Entrenching Tools for Honeydew, too." Peculier replied as he came over to the cabinet and took one himself. "You should also grab some stones too. We may need a whole stack."

"Jebus." Xephos piled as many as he could into a pocket on his pack and took another entrenching tool then followed Peculier out back towards Honeydew, who had already made a good dent in clearing the sand.

"Do you reckon that they'll be preparing for another attack?" asked Xephos as he came to Honeydew and handed him an entrenching tool, which he immediately threw his other shovel away for. The sun was already growing lower, and even though Honeydew had dug down to the bottom of the breach already, they would need to erect a barricade in under an hour to keep out Israphel if he attacked by night.

"We need to dig out all of the sand around the foundations of The Wall so that the reconstruction is more sound." Peculier said as he began to dig into the loose sand with his entrenching tool. Xephos followed suite, and soon Honeydew was singing _Diggy Diggy Hole_ again to boost their morale, this time it was sung faster to better fit the rhythm of digging sand. Peculier's wound seemed to give him no more grievance, and he dug quickly until the sun finally began to dip beneath the horizon after nearly an hour.

"We can't finish in time!" Peculier climbed out of the hole that they'd dug, exposing nearly half of the foundations of The Wall, but it was not enough.

"What do we do?" asked Xephos as he struggled to climb out of the pit without causing a collapse.

"There is nothing we can do." Peculier stood looking out into the desert.

"What do you mean?" Xephos stood beside him as Honeydew crawled out.

Peculier looked over to the sun as it hastily sunk into the distance. "They attack at night, heroes." As he spoke the words the last of the sun's rays vanished into night and from the desert there came a sudden rushing sound.

They all looked towards the noise, and suddenly there he stood atop the dune that he'd disappeared over hours before. Israphel's eyes glowed with malevolence and hunger.

"Oh gods! I'm not done! I need more time!" Honeydew begged as he jumped back into the hole and continued to dig.

"What do we do?" asked Xephos and Peculier pulled one of the smooth runes from his pocket and ran to the west side of The Wall, calling for Xephos to follow.

"Watch closely." He croaked, and held up a fist, within which was one of the runes, that now that Xephos looked at reminded him of the half of one Honeydew had used to save his life with. Peculier pressed the stone against The Wall and in the gloom spoke a word.

"_Avak!"_ he said huskily.

As he spoke the words it was as though a small fire had begun under Peculier's palm, there was a burst of orange sparks and part of The Wall Sprung to life and a huge column of the stone shifted out of The Wall and slowly ebbed to rejoin the other side across the breach.

Peculier turned to Xephos "Take your stones and keep doing this till we have a barricade." he gasped. "We need to have some defense for when they attack."

"How long will this take?" Xephos asked as he pulled out a stone. The column was moving at a glacial pace, and they would need to replicate the process three times over to bring The Wall back to it's original thickness, let alone height.

"Quicker, if you give some to Honeydew." Peculier said as the dwarf hauled himself back out of the hole.

"I didn't know you spoke Dwarvish." Honeydew breathed as he took a stone.

"What do you mean?" Peculier activated another column hastily as Israphel watched, his eyes growing brighter as the world darkened.

"You did it again. _"Avak"_ is Dwarvish for "Build" or "Grow"." Honeydew explained and peered over at Israphel, who hadn't moved so far, save to raise his hand. "What's he doing?" Honeydew asked suspiciously.

For an instant the red glow of Israphel's eyes stopped, then they rekindled and two funnels of ink black smoke phased into being either side of him.

"This can't be good..." Xephos activated two columns as the twisters faded and to the ground fell the now reanimated bodies of the Zombie and Creeper Bosses.

"Oh shit!" Honeydew swore.

The first of the stone beams that they'd activated had reached the other side of the breach, followed by two others.

"We need to hurry, they'll come any second!" Xephos yelled. "It looks like we've got a little bit of time, they seem to be waiting..."

At the sound of Xephos's voice the Zombie Boss looked up and roared across the desert then charged towards The Wall.

"Oh gods!" Honeydew wailed, reaching for his sword and sending a stone column across the bottom of The Wall's foundations as far as it would go.

"They're sending the Zombie in!" Xephos warned, drawing his sword.

As he neared The Wall however, the Zombie Boss stopped. Something had caused him to halt in his mad rush, and now he turned and ran back towards Israphel who was crushing the huge creature under a red stare.

"He's called him back..." Xephos looked on with confusion.

"Yay!" Honeydew pulled himself out of the hole as the column hit the sand and stopped. "But why would he do that?"

The last beam of the barricade they'd hastily constructed was just sliding into place when something leapt through the closing gap and knocked Xephos back down the sand slip.

The zombie pinned him to ground and leaned forward to bite at his neck. "Oh shit!" he swore as he attempted to hold it off him. Then Peculier was over him and stabbed the zombie through the back and out it's chest, stopping his slender blade just before Xephos's armor, which the thin sword would slipped through without trouble.

"Are you alright?" asked Peculier, helping Xephos back to his feet.

"Better, thanks." he thanked, picking up his sword that had been knocked from his grasp.

"Be careful." Honeydew warned as Xephos stood at the barricade, where when he looked out into the desert he was unable to see Israphel's eyes, or just about anything else.

"Let's get some torches down here, for goodness' sake." Honeydew echoed his thoughts, drawing several torches and lighting them from his flint and steel. Soon they were surrounded by a warm light that illuminated the terrain much better, and he stuck them into the sand in front of and behind The Wall.

"I'm worried, because I know the Creeper Boss has a fucking huge explosion." Honeydew said, peering out into the desert to see if he could see any of their foes.

"I know, we should try to take him out before he can get to The Wall." Xephos said.

Peculier, silent as ever merely grunted.

Minute dragged by and yet still there was no sign of Israphel or either of the Bosses. They'd simply vanished as easily as they'd appeared.

"Wait, If Israphel can do that big smokey teleport thing, then how does he not just fly over The Wall?" Honeydew asked.

"There are enchantments to make sure that doesn't happen, the only way into the desert is to breach The Wall or through the Wall Gates, which the Crimson Cross keep secret."

"So this breach was caused by him so he could get in?" asked Xephos.

"Maybe...maybe..." Peculier drifted off.

"Then what could he have been looking for?" asked Honeydew.

"Where is he now is a better question." Xephos said. "I think he's probably amassing his forces or something."

Xephos became aware of a chorus of hissing coming from the west, and he looked down towards the storage shed they'd gotten their supplies from, and could see the darkness beyond the torchlight moving.

"Oh shit..." he swore as a dozen spiders began to scuttle towards The Wall out of the black. "Oh Jebus there are spiders down there!"

"Oh gods!" Honeydew ran down the sand slip followed by Xephos. "I wasn't anticipating a rear attack!"

The spiders fell upon them and they began to slice at their bloated black bodies, causing the arachnids to hiss and lung at them.

"Go back to where you came from foul beasts!" Peculier drew his sword and leapt into the fray, stabbing at the spiders as Xephos stamped one into the ground and sliced open another while Honeydew cleaved a bloody swath through the spiders. Knight Peculier was suddenly knocked off balance by a spider to his left, knocking him flat.

"Peculier, no!" Xephos ran to his aid, stabbing at the spider, skewering it's body. Xephos helped Peculier back up as Honeydew finished the last spider in the wave.

Xephos sighed and looked up at the buttress tower as he began to head back to their unattended barricade.

"Shit, they're coming out of the fricking walls, Honeydew." Xephos looked up to the buttress tower and could see several small red eyes moving around the tower walls.

"They're coming out of the walls!?" Honeydew looked up and saw the eyes staring back. "Oh gods, they're coming out of the goddamn walls!"

Thankfully after witnessing a massacre of their brethren the spiders now seemed reluctant to attack, and scurried back into their hole that led to a nest inside.

"Get back to The Wall, everyone." Xephos turned to the others as they began to head back. But when he turned back crouching atop their barricade was the gargantuan Zombie Boss, huge axe raised to strike down Xephos.

"Fuck!" he yelled as dived to the side while the axe smashed into the ground where he'd stood seconds before.

"Shit, shit!" Honeydew ran forwards to Xephos's aid as the Zombie Boss raised his axe again.

"He sends his minions first!" Peculier yelled as Xephos rolled to avoid the axe again. But the zombie's leg shot down and pinned him to the ground, holding him to the floor. As it raised it's axe to cleave him in two, Xephos stabbed his sword into the Zombie Boss's hamstring, causing it to roar, but it only pressed down harder on Xephos, squeezing the wind from him. Xephos' vision was growing hazy as it readied it's axe to strike, and end it's vendetta.

"You forgotten something _very_ important, mate." came Honeydew's rough voice. The zombie looked up in surprise as Honeydew leapt into the air with his own axe in hand, bringing it down with the power of a aurochs on the Zombie Boss's head, virtually splitting it in two. "I'm Honeydew the goddamned dwarf, and no one hurts my friends."

He wrenched the axe blade out of the zombie's huge head a stepped back as the brute fell backwards, it's axe falling only feet from Xephos.

"Are you alright?" Peculier helped Xephos up, and was handed his sword by Honeydew.

"We need to get up on our barricade and defend better." Xephos got his breath back and climbed up too peered over the column. He looked out into the desert, but he could see nothing. "I can't see them but they're here somewhere." He turned back towards Honeydew, and stopped dead.

Behind the dwarf standing atop the hill they'd taken cover from Israphel behind stood the Creeper Boss.

"Oh gods, Creeper Boss has come through The Wall again!" Xephos pointed. "He's gonna blow stuff up!"

"No!" Honeydew shouted, turning and running towards the huge creeper, who at Honeydew's approach turned and fled back through the hole that it had blown before.

"Chase him back into the desert!" Peculier instructed as Honeydew growled after it.

"We can't risk any more breaches!" Xephos yelled, when an eerily familiar whistling noise came to his ear. He ducked and the arrow flew over his head and into the sand slip. Xephos looked to where it came and saw Israphel standing atop the huge sand arch in the desert, red eyes glowing like coals. "Israphel's shooting at me."

"Ballocks! I forgot about this other hole in The Wall!" Honeydew swore as the Creeper Boss retreated into the Sands.

"Shoot at him!" Xephos shouted.

"I'm out of bolts!" he shouted back.

"Crap, so am I..." Xephos checked his quiver. "Is that other hole where he came through?"

"Yeah..."

"Gods, what are we going to do? They're coming!"

"I don't know!" Honeydew ran back to their barricade. "I was never any good at strategy games! I was never good at strategy games!"

"Do we have anywhere to retreat to?" asked Xephos. "Somewhere safe?"

"We can't do that, Xephos. We can't be cowards."

"Into the supply room!" Peculier spoke up, pointing to the buttress tower. "I'll board it up!"

"Actually, balls to that. Let's go to the supply place, quick." Honeydew set off at a run to the tower with Peculier and Xephos following.

"Quick, quick, quick!" Xephos urged, as they all ran into the small room.

Peculier shut the door and with the help of Honeydew toppled the heavy cabinet in front of it to stop anyone getting in.

They all fell quiet as darkness filled the room. Xephos pressed himself up to the door and listened for anything, and after a few minutes there came the sound of something scraping over the doorway, like a claw, and it seemed to be accompanied by ragged breathing.

After a few moments, though, the sound subsided, and what sounded like hushed footfalls were leading away from them.

A unanimous sigh of relief followed as Honeydew lit a torch in the darkness, placing it in a sconce on the wall.

"Gods, do you think they'll find us?" asked Xephos.

"I hope not." Peculier lent against the wall next to the chests at the rear of the room, removing his helmet and placing it on the chest.

"I've got food, I've got food." Honeydew jumped on top of one of the chests and leant against the wall opposite Peculier after taking off his pack and laying out the last of Granny Bacon's cooked meat.

They all took some of the food gratefully, and the night outside was quiet.

"Oh, that's good." Honeydew munched on the food.

"How're we doing?" asked Xephos, looking about as he sat next to the door in the small room. "How's the shoulder, Knight Peculier?"

"Well enough." he replied shortly.

"Honeydew?"

"I'm good." the dwarf swallowed. "Did you see that amazing kill that I got on the Zombie Boss?"

"While we rest up here, you should tell me what you found in the Crumbling Ruins." Peculier interjected.

"Gods, that seems a while ago." Honeydew said gloomily.

"Well, there's bad news, and some more bad news." Xephos reported. "We have some bad news." he said to sum it up.

"Well..." Honeydew began, but started to choke up.

"Granny is dead." Xephos said for him. "Well...she was undead."

"Yeah, poor Granny Bacon turned." Honeydew confessed, as though it was his fault.

"Granny is _dead?!"_ Knight Peculier croaked in disbelief. "This is grave news."

"Yeah, definitely bad news." Xephos agreed quietly.

"We had to-" Honeydew choked a little, then recovered. "-To put her out of her misery."

"Undead, you say?" Peculier sighed woefully. "Dwarf, I know you two were close...I am sorry."

An ominous silence fell on the room as they ate, and Xephos marveled at how they'd survived such an onslaught.

"Was there anything else?" asked Peculier.

"Um..." Xephos scratched his goatee, which growing into a beard. "We had to kill Reverend John again too."

"Oh gods." Honeydew murmured.

"I know that you two go back aways. Back to Terrorvale." Xephos said, surprising himself with how patronising he sounded.

"John? He rose again?" Peculier gaped. "In Notches name... I did not think that anything was capable of such work."

"We also destroyed a portal." Xephos noted.

"There were _two_ portals under the ruins." Honeydew remembered.

"_Two_ portals!?" Peculier said with shock. "My word..."

"One was already destroyed, though." Xephos clarified.

"Yeah, one was broken, so we destroyed the other."

"Ah, that must have been my father's work." Peculier nodded.

Xephos sat back and closed his heavy lids, wanting to try and rest a little before they ventured back into the Sands. But then something occurred to him.

"Didn't John have a piece of paper or something?" Xephos said as he sat up.

"Oh gods, yeah, the thing that we thought was a piece of a map?" Honeydew asked. "I completely forgot! Oh Jebs..."

Honeydew grabbed his pack and started to rifle through it's contents, much to Peculier's bemusement. Finally he emerged from the folds of the rucksack holding the tiny paper fragment.

"We found this piece of paper." asked Honeydew, handing it to Peculier, who took it with interest. "Here, do you know what this could be?"

"What is this?" asked Peculier taking the paper.

"It was in Reverend John's possession." Honeydew enlightened.

"It's a map fragment!" Peculier observed.

"A map?" Honeydew asked.

"A map _fragment."_ Knight Peculier corrected. "Where it leads, I cannot tell."

"Bugger." Honeydew yawned. "How long until daylight?"

"You've still got that watch I gave you?" Xephos asked, pulling his own of the watches that he'd stolen from Jasper. The disc showed the night was nearing a quarter done, and so did the sounds of spiders outside.

"Morning's rather far off." Honeydew observed looking at his own. "It's a good thing to have, a watch."

"This is strange..." Peculier was still bent over the map. "The writing is...familiar..."

"How so?" asked Xephos.

Peculier carefully folded the map fragment and slid it into his pocket. "We must show this to my Uncle, Adaephon."

"Oh yes, your uncle." Honeydew said

"Oh right? Okay..." Xephos erred. "How old is he anyway?" he asked, suspicion getting the better of him.

"Older than I." Peculier replied in a tone that suggested he didn't know himself.

"Hold on!" Honeydew interrupted. "We have to warn you about something...gods, what was it, something that Madame Nubescu said, what was it...?"

"Honeydew..." Xephos warned.

"A fortune teller warned us..." Honeydew remembered.

"Told you what?" asked Peculier curiously.

"Er...she...told me that I would have bacon in my future!" Honeydew said, avoiding Peculier prophecy.

"Delicious!" Peculier said.

"And that Xephos will...er... will be meet a man in blue and a man in red." Honeydew recalled. "Presumably tall and dark."

"Ooh...cryptic!" the knight pressed.

"And..." Honeydew started, then looked at Xephos. "She told us that your family had dark secrets." He shied away from Xephos' stares.

"Well, I already knew that. But what secrets did she mean?" Peculier pondered.

"Maybe sleep will bring enlightenment." Xephos offered. "There isn't really any need to keep watch, that door shall hold firm, and we all need it badly."

"Agreed." Honeydew lay his head on the wall. "Leave the torch, light is a friend here."

"Good advice." Peculier nodded. "Well, good night then."

"'Night." Honeydew said, and dropped off almost immediately.

Xephos soon was asleep too and eventually Knight Peculier was snoring too.

Annoyingly, the night seemed to last no time at all, and the second they closed their eyes they seemed to awake.

"Daytime." Xephos got to his feet and roused Honeydew. "Help me move the cabinet."

It didn't take long for them to shift the brace away from the doorway, and as they opened the door and stepped into the bright day, they found themselves alone.

"Right we need to get to The Wall and fix it right away. Fast, we need to be fast." Xephos told them as he walked cautiously towards the barricade.

"They're still here, somewhere." Honeydew looked over the barricade. "Somewhere..."

_Authors Note:_

_This one was a little late out, but I hope to compensate for that with EPICNESS. Some good Xephos moments in this one, I felt I owed him it because I killed him…3 times? Anyway, enjoy this, and if you want to stay up to date on posting info and other things, follow me on Twitter:_

/OJvanderBeek

_Have a good day!_


	16. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter16

Chapter 16: A Beacon Of Hope

"I can see them. I can see them." Honeydew peeked over the barricade and looked off into The Sands where the Zombie Boss once again stood, staring back from atop a dune where he suspected the others waited while he guarded.

"I can too." Xephos glanced over as he took out a runestone. "They're lurking."

"They're hanging around like a bad smell, my friends." Honeydew stepped away from The Wall. "A bad smell."

"We need to take advantage of their idle behavior, and mend as much as we can to prevent them from coming through." Peculier advised. "Xephos, you stay here and watch them, try to reinforce and rebuild this part while Honeydew and I seal the hole caused by the Creeper Boss."

Xephos nodded at what was practically a speech for Peculier, and activated another rune above what they'd already fixed of The Wall, making it too high to see over. As Peculier and Honeydew walked up the small hill to the second hole Xephos began to try and restore The Wall to it's previous thickness, building in a step formation so he could constantly check over The Wall into the desert.

After a few minutes and a couple of yards of height he checked over and saw that where Zombie Boss had once stood, there were only two huge footprints.

"Shit." he breathed. "Hurry up and seal that hole, Honeydew! I think that they're resuming the offensive!"

"Work faster, dwarf!" Peculeir urged.

"Fuck!" he heard the dwarf swear. "I need to be quick, like lightning."

"It's alright, I don't think that they can get past what I've rebuilt so far." Xephos encouraged.

Suddenly, from over the dune rushed Israphel flanked by the Creeper Boss and the Zombie Boss. Israphel drew an arrow and ran for the hole Honeydew was mending.

Xephos leaned back out from The Wall and called over to Peculier and Honeydew.

"Israphel's coming for you! Watch out!"

Honeydew activated the last of the stones needed to seal the gap, and ducked as Israphel's black arrow shot threw the rapidly closing gap.

"Oh shit, son!" he cried as the last hole was filled.

"Everything alright?" asked Xephos as he jumped off the small drop from what he'd fixed of The Wall.

"This gap has been closed!" Peculier reported.

"Come back then, they'll try to get over, no doubt." Xephos clambered back up onto The Wall, but as he looked over to assess the situation, there was a hissing.

Xephos looked to the foot of The Wall on the desert side and standing there was the Creeper Boss, on the brink of eruption.

"Take cover!" he yelled as he ducked over The Wall and went into the fetal position atop it.

The explosion caused what had been rebuilt to hop at least a foot into the air and resettle, some of the stone crumbling to dust.

Xephos had been thrown back onto the sand slip next to where Peculier stood, covering his face from the blast.

"Oh, son of a bitch!" he groaned as he looked up.

"Are you alright, Xephos?" asked Peculier.

"Fine-Oh shit not again!"

Xephos pointed through a smaller hole the size of a window caused by the explosion, where he could see Creeper Boss reforming.

"Gods! Kill it!" Xephos ran towards the hole with sword in hand, but the creeper saw him coming and ducked away, heading over to where Honeydew had been resealing The Wall.

"What happened?" the dwarf asked, as he ran up to Xephos, just as another explosion blew apart where Honeydew had just been rebuilding.

"No! Why!?" Honeydew protested, running over to the hole, followed by Peculier.

"Gods damn it!" Xephos climbed once again back onto what remained of The Wall. "You need to kill that Creeper Boss outright! We can't have him blowing up The Wall!"

"This hole is smaller than the last." Honeydew observed as he set to fixing it with the aid of Peculier, ducking away when Israphel went to shot at them. Creeper Boss, who had reformed by the time they'd run up the small hill to the gap, was standing behind him, looking tired, while the Zombie Boss was not in sight.

"Shit, where's the zombie?" asked Honeydew as he succeeded in half filling the hole, stopping most of the arrows, the growing columns of stone like interlacing fingers as they wormed together, but over by the barricade, Xephos yelped.

"Oh gods!" he yelled, as beneath section of The Wall that they'd been building, The Zombie Boss had dug his way through the loose sand after the explosion and into the trench where they'd dug out the foundations, but not entirely connected The Wall to them. The Zombie Boss leapt from the sand behind Xephos, but paid him no mind and instead made a bee-line for Honeydew, who hadn't noticed.

"Oh gods, oh gods! Their sending Zombie Boss behind you! Watch out!"

Xephos leapt after him, but the hulking monolith made no note of him and bounded on towards Peculier and Honeydew.

"Back, fiend!" Peculier drew his father's blade and stood strong before the charging beast.

Zombie Boss swung with his axe at Peculier, but with an agility unseen in him he leapt back from the huge axe as it swept past, then jumped forwards and with a quick swipe sliced open it's jugular vein, spilling thick dead, blood over the grass like black oil.

The Zombie Boss wailed in pain and lashed out at Peculier as he tried to duck away, but was caught on the chest by it's huge arm, knocking him flat.

"Peculier!" Honeydew stepped between them and slashed at Zombie Boss' arm with his entrenching tool.

The Zombie Boss stepped back a began to heft it's huge axe to hack apart Honeydew, but in a quick movement, he stepped forward and swung the entrenching tool at Zombie Boss' neck, and before he could move his axe the serrated edge of the tool sheared through the monstrosity's neck, beheading him.

"Got him!" Honeydew yelled in triumph as he jumped away from the body as it slammed into the ground.

"Well done." Xephos said as he crested the hill to the sight of the Zombie Boss' carcass.

Honeydew was aware of a sudden stabbing pain in his back where Israphel's arrow pierced his pack and struck his bare back.

He cried out and looked over to see that Xephos had been hit too, he'd been helping Peculier up when the arrow thrummed into his abdomen.

"Ow!" he looked up through the hole and saw Israphel standing on a dune on the other side, bow raised. They all dived for cover behind The Wall, as he loosed another two in the same shot.

"This is a pain in the ass!" Xephos groaned, ripping the arrow from his armor, which had taken the brunt of the force. The arrow had been stopped by the last intact piece of plate, but now all of the rips and holes had turned the armor into a hinderance rather than a help. "I'm getting rid of this!" he called as he took off his pack to shed the green surcoat and the ruined armor.

"Look-_Avak!-_ We need to block this hole up-ow!" Honeydew yelled from the other side as he reached around the hole and activated a runestone, but Israphel had sent an arrow into his vambrace, barely putting a nick in the strong dwarven metal, but the force was enough to cause his hand to throb. "Gods damn it, Israphel leave me alone!"

"Go back to where you came, Hellspawn!" Peculier yelled at Israphel over the tiny wall within The Wall.

He activated another runestone below the one he'd done before, and as the two traveled in tandem it created enough cover for him to cross to the other side of the gap to where Xephos and Peculier waited.

"We're never going to get this Wall rebuilt at this rate." Xephos groaned as he set of four runes in quick succession, tripling the thickness of the two layered barricade Honeydew had made to cross. "Do we have to try drive him off?" Xephos headed back towards the original breach to assess the damage done by Creeper Boss and repair it.

"I think we do." Honeydew admitted as he added more filled more of the hole.

Xephos ran over to the hole at the foot of the breach where Zombie Boss had dug under him. It was wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and Xephos warily dropped down into it to see how far it went. As he landed in the hole, a few feet or so deeper than he was tall he found himself standing on the old foundations of The Wall, but as the sand tunnel wore on, at it's end on the other side of The Wall Israphel stood, no doubt caught in an attempt to sneak around behind the company. Xephos realised this in shock as the evil spirit began summoned an arrow black as a crow and drew it into his bow, aiming at Xephos' unguarded heart. In his few remaining seconds, Xephos fell to the floor and pressed one of the runestones to the foundations. _"Avak!"_ The pillar of stone rose out of the ground slowly, but it the half light of the tunnel the orange flash of the rune had distracted Israphel enough for the pillar to rise high enough to defend Xephos as the dark arrow snapped against the cold, hard stone.

Xephos stood as it neared connection with the ceiling, and saw in the last few seconds Israphel staring back, eyes red and glowing.

Xephos smirked and turned to exit the hole while the pillar connected to the ceiling, stopping abruptly. "Fuck you." Xephos sneered as he climbed out.

Somewhere nearby, there was a sound similar to a thunderclap, save that it was deeper, like two boulders grinding together. Xephos began to turn to The Wall in surprise but his body was not obeying him. He began to turn, but he moved as though he was submerged in thick tar, his body working slowly as if time itself had slowed, yet his mind remained unaffected.

_What's happened? _Xephos thought, willing himself to complete the turn. _ What has he done?_

He attempted to call out to Honeydew and Peculier, but his voice came out slowly, deep, thick and indecipherable. It seemed like an eternity when he heard Honeydew yell out, seemingly in distress.

Then time returned to it's normal route once more, and Xephos found himself spinning totally around in a circle before his wits were returned to him.

"What was that?" Peculier yelled. "Some foul magics of Israphel no doubt."

"What just happened?" asked Xephos as he ran over to check on the other two. "Israphel, he slowed down time, or something."

"That sounds right." Honeydew agreed. "I saw him and the Creeper Boss run in here and teleport away Zombie Boss' corpse. Which means..."

"We have to kill it. _Again."_ Xephos groaned. "Why would he not kill us though?"

"Magic works in strange ways." Peculier offered. "Mayhaps the spell prevented him from hurting anyone?"

"I don't know, but we should get back to fixing the breach." Xephos said. "They are probably recovering for another attack, and we should fix as much as possible before then."

"Yeah," Honeydew was setting off the last few runestones needed to cover the hole. "Creeper Boss seems to be running out of juice too, his explosions are getting weaker, he probably won't be able to blow apart The Wall now."

"Then we'd best get started." Xephos headed for The Wall.

"Careful down there." Xephos cautioned to Honeydew as the dwarf finished clearing away the sand from the foundations so that they could reconnect it to The Wall. "Make sure that all of the sand is cleared out. We need a good foundation."

"Yeah, will do." Honeydew called up.

It had been hours since the time-slowing spell, and it was now nearing the afternoon, and the section of The Wall that they were rebuilding was twice it's height that it had been in the morning, thanks to Xephos and Knight Peculier's constant work on it and Honeydew's below. They'd had minimal breaks and had hardly eaten since last night, but still on they labored, the cruel blazing sun glaring down on them.

"The Wall needs to be thick, lest it falls again." Peculier grumbled, his bald head shining with sweat, he'd taken off his father's helmet to avoid being cooked in the tight steel.

"He speaks allot of sense, that man." Honeydew spoke as he climbed out of the hole after activating the stone columns and connecting The Wall to it's foundations. "Foundations are done."

"Get up here and help then, we need to get this fixed now, I think if Israphel is going to attack, it will be soon." Xephos said as Honeydew climbed the rope ladder that had been fetched from supply room so they could climb up the slowly growing Wall.

Xephos walked to the edge of The Wall and set off another stone column and sent it traveling along the length of the breach. It took three columns side by side to match The Wall's original thickness, and they built the stone up on the side closest to The Sands in a two-layer high barricade as a precaution for the occasional opportunistic arrow that would on occasion smack into the rock.

Xephos stood on tiptoe and peered out at the desert, totally undisturbed save by the gentle wind, which would whip the sand in a spiraling dance across the impossible cliffs and arches of sand. He heard a whistling and ducked away quickly as an arrow sped past where he'd been standing.

"Gods, Israphel and his minions are bloody scary." he breathed as he went back to work. "He's been trying ti snipe me, and it's a real pain in the ass."

Honeydew snorted.

"It's alright, we are getting close to finishing this thing." He looked up at the peak of The Wall high above. It was an optimistic statement, they were only on the cusp of reaching half-way, and the day was beginning to grow older. "Well, at least they wont be able to get back in, will they? We could use some arrows though."

They continued to build in silence for a few minutes, the gradually growing Wall becoming more and more imposing.

"Maybe we have to kill Israphel? Is that what we're doing wrong?" asked Xephos, as though hoping for a sign from the Mojang Divines, Jebus Christ, or even The Creator Notch himself. "Go out and kill him, stemming the corruption at it's source."

"That's the problem though," Honeydew spoke up, drifting past Xephos on one of the moving columns of stone. "Killing him? That's a difficult job. You saw how well he fought. Plus, I just think that they are opportunistic, they attacked because The Wall was weakened, they thought that they could have a go." he paused. "But now that we've strengthened it, maybe they'll piss off."

Xephos activated some more stone at the foot of the barricade, then stood on top of it as Honeydew did so with the layer next to it, following him. "Do you think if we go out there he's going to run away? Or start shooting us..."

Over the desert there was a wretched cry carried by the wind, Zombie Boss' roar echoed along The Wall, a cruel sound, grotesquely reminiscent of a laugh.

"They taunt us..." Peculier spoke as he leapt onto the moving platforms.

Xephos added another layer of stone to the top of the barricade.

"We can't kill that Zombie Boss, he keeps coming back!" grumbled Honeydew.

Xephos took a brief moment to scan the desert, trying to discover where the three were taking cover, as he searched, he saw distantly a white face in black robes atop one of the huge arches of sand, red eyes staring right back.

"He's there-Argh!" Xephos cried out as he tried to duck away from the arrow as it sped past him, but the sharp tip caught him on the edge of his shoulder, his blood running crimson over the already red shirt.

"Of Notch not again!" he fell away from The Wall as Peculier and Honeydew grasped for him, missing. His fall was short, he landed on his back with a thump that knocked the wind out of him, as he lay wheezing he heard Honeydew calling down to him.

"Ballocks! Are you alright!?" Xephos nodded as best he could. "Shit, that was bloody lucky, lad. If you'd landed anywhere else you'd be far worse for wear."

Xephos managed to suck in a lungful of air and crawl to his knees where he saw that he was knelt upon a massive pile of sand that they'd piled all of the refuse from digging out the foundations, it was about six yards off the ground, and had Xephos missed it he was like to have been concussed on the hard dirt below.

"Gods, Israphel shot me off of The Wall. I was only up for only second and he got me." Xephos found his breath returning and made for the rope ladder. "I saw where he was hidden, he's on top of that big arch out there."

"How's the arm?" Honeydew asked as he helped Xephos back up.

"Barely worthy of being called a flesh wound. I could use some food though. Can I have some of that pork you had Peculier, friend?"

"Here you go, hero."

Knight Peculier handed Xephos the half of a pork steak, which he chewed on thoughtfully.

"We're going to be here allot longer than we originally thought if we can't get rid of Israphel and his henchmen." Xephos dangled his legs over the side of The Wall. "But I don't think that it's going to be easy to take him out."

"We could let a rope ladder down the other side and rush him." Honeydew suggested.

"He'd snipe us out before we could reach the ground," Xephos reminded him. "And even then, we'd be in his domain, he'd have advantage of terrain, and he can bring back the dead too."

"Gods, then how do we do this?"

"The signal tower must be relit." Peculeir stated. They looked at him and saw that he was staring up at the tower to the right of the breach, right on the edge of the gap, high above them. Under it's tall roof there was an unlit brasier surrounded by glass. "That will drive them back."

"What will a beacon do to send him back?" asked Honeydew.

"When Verigan built The Wall he made sure that it's height and strength were not the only things supporting it. The enchantments he had placed on it were many and powerful. One allowed for it to be repaired using the runestones, another is held in the flames on the towers. So long as the beacon is alight the section of The Wall it protects is guarded by a shield that prevents any breach.

"I can't believe I only now have realised it. Israphel's agents must have scaled The Wall and extinguished the flame, if we relight it we can build in peace." Peculier told them.

"Small problem, I don't know if you've noticed," Honeydew began. "But how _do_ we climb up?"

"Good point." Xephos nodded at him.

"We could climb to the top of the buttress tower and traverse across the the buttress to it." Peculier offered.

"No, last remember all of those spiders we saw coming out of the holes in the walls of it at night?" Xephos reminded him. "I don't fancy going up against a nest of them."

"Wait, we _slept_ under there!" Honeydew recoiled.

"Look Honeydew, one of us is going to have to relight this signal fire." Xephos scolded. "But we need to get up first." he stared off into space. "I need to think on this."

"Do we have a grapnel?" asked Honeydew.

"Not even a dwarf like you could throw one that high." Peculier replied.

Honeydew looked offended and slumped against The Wall.

"Wait a second..." Xephos said. "Peculier, how far can the stone columns from these runestone travel until they stop?"

Peculier looked baffled but then replied.

"I believe they continue to travel until they reach the edge of the enchantment field."

"And you're _sure_ of this?"

"Yes." Knight Peculeir replied. "Positive."

"Oh gods..." Honeydew moaned. "What crazy idea have you come up with this time?"

"One that is crazy enough to work." Xephos pulled out two of the runestone and told Peculier and Honeydew to move.

He walked to where their rebuilding met The Wall and pressed one of the stones onto the ground in front of him. He activated it with a word and the pillar rose out of the ground before him.

"What are you doing..." Honeydew cautioned.

The pillar slowly moved to Xephos's head-height.

"Something stupid enough to save the entire world." Xephos knelt and laid his hand over the second runestone and pressed it into the ground. _"Avak!"_

The pillar beneath him gave a start and soon it was pushing him up into the air behind the first of the pillars, sending him towards the top of The Wall.

"And people say _I'm_ the mad one!?" Honeydew protested, watching Xephos as he stood up and rose towards the signal tower.

"I'm just better at hiding it!" Xephos yelled back down.

"Godspeed, you magnificent bastard! I'll hold the fort here."

"He'll be needing it." Peculier reminded as a dark arrow struck into the pillar that was hiding Xephos.

Standing on the slowly rising pillar of grey stone, Xephos felt as though every breeze was a hurricanic gust, and every of Israphel's arrows was a mighty bolt flung by a great ballista.

"If I get shot off here I'll be in serious trouble." he said to no-one.

He knew Honeydew and Peculier were below, looking up in worry, but he could no bring himself to look down, after falling out of the tree in Mistral City and virtually dying after a creeper blew away the ground from beneath him in the Temple, he wasn't as savvy with depth as he had once been.

Another arrow hit the side of the pillar he leant against that he'd placed for a shield, but as he looked over to Verigan's Hold he saw an explosion of black smoke as Israphel teleported himself off of the sand arch to where he had a clearer shot at Xephos.

"Oh shit!" he swore, ducking into the corner former by the pillar and The Wall. Israphel's arrow struck into The Wall, narrowly missing Xephos, sticking in and snapping as the pillar Xephos stood on caught up with it.

Looking up, Xephos saw that he was nearing the top of The Wall, he could hear Honeydew crying out below him. Another arrow pierced the stone, this one closer to his face, he swallowed and looked up again to see how far he had to go. The edge was slowly approaching, only a few seconds more and he would be there, but it only took Israphel a few seconds to reload too. he looked out and could see the horrid white face staring back at him, as he drew back his bow for the last shot.

With a start, Xephos felt the pillar behind him cease to move while it's sister continued. He looked up and saw that it had reached the top, reaching the edge of it's enchantment and stopping. Xephos had seconds to act with his cover gone, he took his lean off the pillar and as his own one drew him up he leapt and scrambled over the edge and onto The Wall, when there came a stabbing pain in his calf muscle.

Xephos screamed in pain as he looked back at his right leg. Israphel had loosed his arrow, and it had met the side of Xephos' calf, piercing right through it, the tip protruding from the opposite side to where it entered, blood marking both areas.

Xephos grunted in pain as he scrambled out of arrow-shot at the top of The Wall, leaning against the merlons to rest himself. He forced himself to look down at his impaled calf, the wicked black arrow now different to the others, save that it was a broad-head, designed to dig into flesh and cause hemorrhaging. Designed for him.

He looked over at the signal tower next to him, inside the doorway was a ladder leading up to the platform where the glass-surrounded brazier stood. Looking down at the arrow he reached out and grabbed it around the head. There was only one way to do this. He made his screaming calf muscle relax and in a moment where he forced his brain not to think, ripped the arrow out of his leg.

Xephos was dimly aware of Honeydew and Peculier's worried voices but he could not hear them over the pain that he felt as the shaft was wrenched from his calf. Waves of nausea broke upon him like a shore. He managed to open his eyes to assess his wound. There was blood, but no major veins nor arteries had been torn, yet the loss of blood would surely drag him to unconsciousness soon.

Lying low, Xephos used three of his four limbs to pull himself towards the ladder that extended up the signal tower. It exaughisted him just getting there, but now the true challenge began.

arm over arm Xephos pulled himself up the rungs, grunting every time his right leg touched the wall. He urged himself to continue, and in what seemed an eternity Xephos pulled himself into the beacon room.

The room was small, and surrounded on all sides by thick curved glass with gaps at the base to allow the flame to breath. In the center was a pipe protruding from the floor, a nozzle on it's head and a valve next to it, allowing the gas to pass through it.

Xephos dragged himself to the beacon, leaving a trail of blood and pulled himself up to it. The valve was turned off, and recently judging by the rust. Xephos panted as he reached into his pocket to pull out his raggedy flint and steel. He readied himself and turned the valve, allowing the gas into the room. The fumes and the loss of blood was causing him to begin to pass out, he struck wildly at his flint and steel until there was a spark.

The explosion in the room sent him into the glass walls, and he was aware of a heat in the room as he began to grow faint.

Something then grabbed him by the ankles and began to pull Xephos towards the exit, Xephos heard voices and when he opened his eyes he was lying on to top of The Wall, he was being held by Honeydew as Peculier looked between the signal tower and the desert.

"The signal tower doesn't need to be _that_ bright!" he heard Peculier say and looked up to see that the entire roof of the tower was ablaze, sharp, hot orange tongues tasting the sky, beginning to glow red in the setting of the sun.

Xephos gave a small laugh at his own folly, in the time it had taken him to strike a spark off his flint and steel, the gas had filled the room and caused a small explosion, directed upwards and setting the roof afire. "I may have set fire to the tower." he coughed.

"No shit, mate." Honeydew said as he began to bandage Xephos' leg with the strips of fabric that Lysander had used to hold Peculier's splint in place only a week ago. "You've lost a fair amount of blood. Next time _I_ take the risk. You've hurt yourself too much over the last week or so."

"Will that drive them away now?" Xephos asked, trying to look over the merlons to see if the beacon had achieved anything.

"I bloody hope so. Night is coming." Honeydew replied, looking to Peculier for an explanation.

"It is getting dark again." Xephos said worriedly. "How did you two get up here in any case?" he asked.

"Same way you did." Honeydew answered, not looking up.

Peculier, who was looking out into the desert suddenly spoke; "As soon as Honeydew heard you cry out he insisted we come to your aid. Right as we reached the top of The Wall we saw the tower go up and Honeydew had to pull you out."

"I remember." Xephos said, his head still swimming. "Maybe we should just start swearing at Israphel as he's forced to retreat. Stop mothering me, friend, I have some of my dignity. I'm going to have a look over the top."

Even as his vision began to swim, Xephos pulled himself up onto the merlons and overlooked the Sands, searching for Israphel.

"There." Peculier pointed to the arch where he'd stood before, now looking up at them with eternal hatred burning in his eyes. Behind him Creeper Boss and Zombie Boss were shying away from him, as though afraid. "They know."

"I can see him." Xephos watched intently incase he decided to loose another arrow.

Honeydew stood next to him on the battlements as the sun splashed the desert with red. Israphel turned and with a gesture both the Zombie and Creeper Bosses fell down, apparently dead. He then leapt into the air in a comet of black smoke and flew off into the desert.

"Yes! He's fleeing!" Xephos cheered. "He's fleeing back into the desert!"

"Hooray!" Honeydew called as Peculier smiled wanly.

"Gods, if it's going to be as hard as it has been I don't really want to carry on." Xephos sighed. "That was intense, wasn't it?"

"It was." Honeydew agreed.

"Yes, but now that we've sent that fiend away we can build without worry." Peculeir reminded.

"Gods, how are we getting back down, though?" asked Xephos.

"I've brought the rope ladder with me." Honeydew patted his pack. "But I don't think your leg is going to permit any conventional traveling."

"Well, now that we know that the stones can travel upwards, we it should be easier to rebuild." Peculier recommended.

"How did you find out about that, anyway?" asked Honeydew.

Xephos told them of how he'd encountered Israphel in the sand tunnel, and how he'd though of using the pillars to get up The Wall.

"Ah..." Honeydew mumbled thoughtfully.

"Well, as soon as we've fixed The Wall we can head back to Verigan's Hold along the top of it." Peculier offered. "It will be easier on your leg, Xephos."

After lighting some torches so that they could see what they were doing, and activating three stone columns to bridge the gap across the breach, Honeydew and Peculier headed down the long and precarious rope ladder to continue rebuilding while Xephos stood watch, leaning on Honeydew's entrenchment tool that he'd borrowed like a crutch.

It was well past midnight by the time Honeydew and Peculier climbed up the rope ladder for the last time, with The Wall fully repaired save the crenelations that could not be fixed using the runestone. Xephos had been drifting in and out of sleep atop The Wall, and was jerked out of a doze when the other two climbed up next to him.

"Is it done?" he asked.

"Yep, as best we can do, except for the merlons here." Honeydew replied.

"Good as new," Xephos smiled.

"The world is safe, for now." Peculier announced.

"Huzzah!" Honeydew cheered.

"Great, but do we have any more food? I'm starving." Xephos asked.

So in the darkness atop The Wall they shared the last of Peculier's provisions overlooking the foreboding Sands.

"We should head back to Adaephon, he will know about this map." Peculier said as they began to set off towards Verigan's Hold along The Wall at Xephos' limping pace. "He will likely have something to help out wounds, too."

They continued along The Wall, recounting their heroics until Honeydew noticed something out in the desert.

"Gods, that was epic! Did you see that first kill I got on Zombie Boss?" Xephos said thinly, trying to disguise his pain.

"What's that light out there?" Honeydew pointed out over the Sands, where from behind a veritable mountain of sand a light shone. "Is it him? Do you see that light?"

Their progress halted as Honeydew showed them it strange occurrence.

"What light? Oh." Xephos stood far back from the edge, he was unstable enough without vertigo. "Could it be Israphel?"

Peculier said nothing as he stared out at the distant light.

"Binoculars?" asked Xephos. "Do you have any per chance?"

Peculier looked at him with confusion, clearly unfamiliar with the dwarven device.

"Do not focus your minds on the desert...It corrupts." he responded after a pause.

"Okay." Xephos said as they continued onwards, leaving the mirage behind.

After a while they were closer to Verigan's Hold and The Wall began to slope down towards the battlements on the walls surrounding the keep. The company descended the stairs slowly for Xephos's sake but were soon on the walls surrounding Verigan's Hold.

"Gods, let's get inside, look the sun's beginning to rise." Xephos pointed to the east where the sun's first rays were painting the night sky deep purple.

Honeydew sighed deeply. "I already feel safe." he smiled.

"We're back." Xephos agreed as they walked towards where the castle wall joined into the right of the Hold's squat towers. The door was unlocked and they entered the small room inside and where another door to the left led to the keep, where as they entered on the mezzanine floor they could see Templar Adaephon slumbering in the large chair at the head of the long-table.

"Here he is!" Honeydew cried as he helped Xephos descend the stairs to the ground floor. "It's our friend the templar!"

Adaephon woke with a start, scarf still covering his face. He grabbed his spear and using it hobbled over to the three of them at the foot of the stairs.

"Welcome back!" he said heartily. "When I didn't hear from you I began to worry. What happened to you!?" he asked, looking at Peculier's and Xephos' wounds.

"Greetings! We had some trouble involving Israphel and his minions." Honeydew explained.

"I am glad that you still live." Adaephon responded.

"You're glad we still live? _We're_ glad we still live." Xephos sighed. "But the world is saved."

"We just saved your Nephew, Peculier too." Honeydew said as Knight Peculier stepped forwards. "...And the world. No big deal."

"Hello Uncle." Peculier greeted Adeaphon kindly.

"Hello Nephew." Adaephon replied, looking worried. "Is the breach mended?"

"Any reward that you have would be cool." Honeydew said, continuing from his previous statement. Xephos elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

"Yes, Uncle, the breach is mended."

Adaephon was pleased by this, reaching out and patting Peculier on the shoulder merrily.

"Well done! You have fought well!" now Adaephon seemed to sag, looking back at the three gravely. "Bold Knight Peculier, can you feel it?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Feel what?" asked Xephos.

"I do." Peculier grimaced. "The evil presence under the desert."

Honeydew sighed. "Somehow I knew that it wasn't going to be good." he said.

"Ah, I though so. Then it is as I feared." Adaephon replied solemnly.

"How do we seal away this ancient evil like Karpath did?" asked Peculier, intently.

"I wish I knew, but without the map, we are lost." Adaephon seated himself back into his chair.

"Wait, what?" Honeydew yelled.

"The map!" Xephos turned to Peculier.

"But fortunately, we have two heroes with us." Peculier smiled wryly, revealing the crumpled map. "They seem to hold onto allot of stuff."

"That we do." Xephos laughed.

Peculier handed the map piece to Adaephon in his chair who at first looked on at the tiny bit of paper with bemusement, which soon vanished in turn for awe.

"This is..." he breathed. "Yes! This is the map...well part of it anyway. This is barely a quarter. Where is the rest?" Adaephon looked at them expectantly.

"Oh..." Xephos began to feel his heart sink.

"Where did you find it?" Adaephon asked.

"These heroes saved it from the clutches of the Cult of Israphel." Peculier explained.

"...In the possession of Reverend John, who'd turned undead, to be specific." Honeydew added.

Adaephon studied the paper again, getting to his feet. "This _is_ Karpath's Map...it's drawn strangely, but it'll show the way. The way through the desert. Perhaps we have some hope after all..." Adaephon's face became serious now. "But we must find the other three parts of the map!"

"Where are the other pieces?" asked Xephos.

"Where do we begin?" Peculier said after him.

"Oh, this is beginning to feel like a quest, Xephos." Honeydew grinned.

"I am afraid I do not know." Adaephon admitted to not knowing where the other map fragments lay. "I thought that it was lost forever! You will need to ask those older and wiser than me."

"Who is that old? And...uh, wise?" Peculier asked, voicing Xephos' thoughts.

"Good question." Honeydew said.

Adaephon moved back to his chair, making a thoughtful noise. "Arch-Warlock Bimple? Grand Magus Jellophanes?" he mused. "I don't know if they still live to be frank."

"Well who do we know who could tell us?" Xephos asked. "Fumblemore?" he offered.

"Fumblemore?!" Adaephon exclaimed, then began to chuckle briefly. "That mad idiot would be absolutely no help." he finished flatly. "His brain is softer than jelly!"

"That mad idiot, _saved _Peculier's life!" said Honeydew incredulously, in Fumblemore's defense.

"Yeah!" Xephos agreed. "Fumblemore will know what to do!" although, in his head Xephos remembered the enormous wild goose chase that he'd sent them on to gather the ingredients to make Peculier's potion.

Adaephon looked shocked by this, but Peculier made no move either to Fumblemore's defense or his uncle's.

"Perhaps he has regained some of his sanity, then." Adaephon conceded begrudgingly. "I apologise."

Honeydew nodded approvingly. "He is a great and wise wizard."

"You need to find someone in tune with the magical powers of the map." Adaephon said, trying one last time to deter them from the path of Fumblemore.

"Fumblemore would be in tune with the magical power of the map." Xephos said reassuringly.

"Well, you'd think so." Honeydew mumbled. "I mean this whole map thing is all a bit fucking mental, if you ask me, so it probably suits him down to the ground."

"Perhaps..." Adaephon sighed, giving up. "I wish you luck heroes." he handed Xephos the map, which he secured as carefully as he could in his rucksack.

"Thanks." he replied.

"The fate of the world, is in your hands."

"Oh, no big deal then." Honeydew said sarcastically.

"Thank you, Uncle." Peculier went to one knee and bowed. Honeydew followed suit and Xephos did as best as he could with his make-shift crutch.

"You make me proud, Nephew."

"I'll do my best to live up to my father's name."

Adaephon made for them to stand and offered them food and lodgings for the night, showing them to the back of the keep to a huge bunk room, intended to house over one hundred Templars. None of the bunks that lined the high walls had been touched in years.

"I call the top bunk!" Honeydew cried, running to the ladder of the nearest and clambering up to the fifth bed, while Peculier and Xephos were happy enough to situate themselves on the ground level beds.

Adaephon brought them surprisingly fresh bread and salt cured fish for supper, and at their request a vial of balm and clean bandages for their wounds, claiming the magic in the vial was reserved for only the highest ranking Templars, and would have even Xephos' wound be fully healed in a few hours. After a painstaking application of the ointment, and redressing his bandages, Xephos was nearly asleep on his feet, it had been months since he'd slept on an actual bed, regardless how ancient and the one he sat on was extremely inviting. He stripped off his pack and down to his breaches as Honeydew climbed the ladder all the way up to his own bed after helping Peculier with his own arrow wound on his chest, putting him to bed and dousing the torches.

"'Night Xephos, Peculier." he said as his rucksack, armor and the entirety of his clothes came crashing down from his bunk into the floor.

Xephos sighed. "Goodnight Honeydew."

"Wake up!"

Xephos' had to fight to open his eyes to the light steaming through the huge skylight above the quarters. He rolled over and looked out into the room where Honeydew stood with his back to Xephos, stark naked and pulling on his underclothes and trousers.

"Great to sleep in an actual bed again, ain't it?" Honeydew said, grinning at Xephos with his helmet askew.

Xephos cringed away from his friend's nakedness. "Yes, and I would very much like to enjoy it for five hours longer." he lay back down.

"Come now, friend!" Honeydew bucked his trousers and threw back Xephos' covers. "Peculier's been up for hours already and his wound is practically gone! Let's see yours."

Xephos sat up quickly when he noticed that there was no longer a throbbing pain in his leg. Once he'd unwrapped the linen he found that he no longer had a hole in his leg. The muscle had re-grown almost overnight, leaving two raw dimples either side of his calf, rimmed by black bruising. When Xephos tried to walk on it, he limped, but he was able to do so unaided.

Honeydew recommended applying some more of the balm which they did, and redressed the wound. As Xephos dressed and hoisted his pack over his back, Honeydew informed him that Adaephon had given them food from his own supply for their journey as well as some extra bandages and the vial of magical balm.

They walked back out into the central room of the keep where Adaephon was talking with Knight Peculier, looking regal in his father's helm, in a low voice.

"Are we ready to go?" Honeydew asked.

Adaephon looked up at their approach.

"Yes." he said. "It is time that you set off. I once again wish you luck."

"Thank you, Templar." Xephos bowed stiffly as Peculier led the way out of the door and into the sun dappled courtyard. "Okay, let's go. Where are we going? Where do we go?" asked Xephos, suddenly in a confusion.

"Xephos," Honeydew walked past him and Peculier, looking back as he pushed open the main gates with a sly grin. "We're going to save the world."

_Author's Notes: Great Balls of Fire! Xephos got hurt again, why do I find myself doig this all of the time? Lewis is horrible at self preservation. If any of you didn't know, there is a Homepage for this story on Yogscat .com:_

_ ?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek__)_

_Also, my Twitter if you want to be best kept up-to-date on chapter postings, and possible interferences:_

_ /OJvanderBeek_

_Have a nice day._


	17. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter17

Chapter 17: The Fragmented Map.

"We need to find Fumblemore, I think." Xephos nodded towards where Mistral City lay beyond The Skull.

"That's the plan." Honeydew confirmed, as he joined Xephos on the plaza at the foot of Verigan's Hold's walls. "But, the problem is, that his tower was missing in Mistral."

"Oh, yeah..." Xephos looked down into the Carnivale Del Banjo, where Mr. Banjo, Bruno and Nubescu seemed hard at work piling all of their supplies onto a decent sized airship, which seemed to have come from nowhere, a stylised visage of Nubescu's face stared out from the side of the envelope, looking far more young comely than the real Madame.

"So I'm starting to think that going there may not be a good idea, seeing as he might not even be there." Honeydew continued.

"No..." Xephos walked to the edge of the slate platform perched atop the small hill next to where the carnival was wrapping up. "And the Carnivale is moving on. There's Madame Nubescu's face, staring out at us, so they're not sticking around."

"Of course, Madame Nubescu, she previously helped us in the past with our adventure." Honeydew said thoughtfully. "She'll be gone soon...Xephos, do you think she may be able to help us with this map?"

"Oh," Xephos looked across at the dwarf. "We should go talk to her?"

"Heroes." Peculier spoke behind them hoarsely.

They turned to the old man, looking at them with a serious expression on his face.

"I have unfinished business, I must leave you again, my friends." he announced, head held high.

"Oh dear," Xephos sighed.

"No, not again..." Honeydew protested. "Please!"

Peculier ended the conversation by mounting his father's helmet upon his head, which surprisingly seemed to be re-growing his thinning hair.

"He's following in the footsteps of his father." Xephos consoled. "But what might you be doing, Peculier?"

He did not for a long while, and when he did, it was not an answer.

"I have also set up a place for you to recover after failed battles." he pointed over to the right of the main gateway to Verigan's Hold, where there was a large chest pressesd against the wall of the hold.

"I call it a "Check Point"." he said as Xephos and Honeydew walked curiously towards it. There was a large flag with a red "C" on a field of yellow hanging pinned from the wall.

"A "Check Point"?" Honeydew asked. "Oh my goodness..." he said as he reached the chest.

"Yes. It will remain here, outside of the castle." Peculier nodded. "But enough drabble! You must find the map! Then, you need to return here, and speak with Adaephon."

"Okay, we'll do that then." Xephos said. "Let's go-"

Honeydew threw open the lid of the chest, an pulled out a suit of chain and plate armor, complete with greaves and a corinthian helmet.

"Aha!" he yelled, pulling it out and looking the armor over, then stopping under Xephos' stare.

Honeydew sighed and handed Xephos the curias, greaves and helm.

"Here." he said glumly. "I've already got armor."

Xephos smiled smugly.

"Thank you, friend," he chuckled as he got to work strapping on the armor. "Did you get this, Peculier?" he asked. But when he didn't reply, Xephos and Honeydew looked up and they could see him walking purposefully down the road that led to where the breach had been.

"Pecuiler!" Xephos called after him before he vanished through the low drooping trees in the mid morning sun. The knight turned and looked back at them.

Xephos tried to think of something to say, but no words could he think. Instead, he made a fist and rapped it against his now armored breast, and then raised it to the air. Honeydew followed his example, and Peculier stood to attention and mirrored the salute. Xephos and Honeydew watched in sadness as he turned and pushed through the trees and vanished from view.

"And there he goes again." Honeydew mumbled. "Off on another adventure without us."

Xephos snorted and lightly punched his friend in the arm.

"You sentimental old sod, you. Don't worry, where we're going they'll be plenty of adventure."

Honeydew looked up.

"Yeah," he sighed, then grinned. "Let's go get it, then!"

They set back off towards where Madame Nubescu would be clearing away here belongings, as they passed the gate to Verigan's Hold, they nearly missed Adaephon, standing in between the gates.

"The fate of the world depends on you, heroes." he called. "Good luck."

"Thanks, Templar!" Xephos waved as they passed. "Have you still got the map?" he asked.

"I've still got the piece of paper, see?" Honeydew walked ahead of him and turned, pulling the faded map fragment from his pocket, the cool breeze tugging at it.

"Thank gods for that."

"Very important. Can't loose it, can't loose it."

The wind then pick up, and a gust deftly pulled the map from his fingers.

"Oh shit!" he called. as he snatched for it, the wind carrying it backwards. Xephos reached out and managed to snag it as the map flew past him.

"Oh gods, that was close." Honeydew breathed. "Maybe I shouldn't have it just in my pocket."

"Might be we should put it in the checkpoint, it seemed to me that was supposed to act as" a bank or something." Xephos looked back at it as they continued forwards. "But it's a little out in the open." he continued to clutch the paper visciously, even as he handed it back to Honeydew. "I think we should just hold onto all of the valuable stuff. And if you go near any lava, be _very_ careful. I know we've said this before, but you're also holding the Holy record as well, aren't you, of father Braeburn's, Don't forget about that."

"Of course." Honeydew nodded. "The Church of the Holy Record."

"Right, so let's go find Madame Nubescu I guess, and ask her if she knows anything about the map."

"Seeing how Fumblemore's Tower is no longer there, finding him would be hard." Honeydew agreed.

"Well, we could always check later."

Xephos led the way down the stone stairs carving down the hillside to what was left unpacked of the Carnivale Del Banjo.

"We're surrounded by people who know about all kinds of things." Honeydew said optimistically as they reached the foot of the stairs, where surprisingly, Nubescu was leaning against a lamppost. "Or, at least we hope know about these things."

"Hello, friends. I sense you troubled..." Nubescu croaked in her death rattle of a voice.

"_I am troubled, every time I see you I'm troubled, cause I'm worried that my throat is going to start bleeding." _Honeydew whispered under his breath.

Xephos elbowed him hard.

"We are." he admitted to Nubescu, more politely.

If Nubescu overheard Honeydew's jest, she made no notice of it.

"What is jah be needin' help wit?" she asked.

"_You ask her about the map, I'll have a poke around, I think." _ Xephos whispered to Honeydew as she spoke.

"Okay, friend." Honeydew replied, stepping forwards to grab Nubescu's full attention as Xephos ducked behind here and set off to snoop about the large number of crates where Nubescu's tent had been. "Do you know anything about carogarphy- I mean, cartography?" Xephos heard Honeydew ask he disappeared around the wooden boxes.

"I...could have a go..." Nubescu ventured.

"Good." Honeydew watched over Nebescu's shoulder as Xephos ran from the crates across the carnival to the foot of the airship, where he seemed to start inspecting more large wooden boxes. "Do you know anything about the magical map of Karpath?" he asked, holding out the fragment that Xephos had given him.

"Let's look at dat." Nubescu reached for it and Honeydew cautiously aloud her to hold it. "Dis be evil..." she warned, not even bothering to look at it. "Jah sure jah be wantin' me to tell jah where it leads?"

"Yes, yes I am sure." Honeydew announced impatiently, causing Xephos to poke his head over the side of the airship, which he'd boarded. Quickly, he dropped over the side and silently ran over to where the two were standing.

"Yes!" He burst, causing Nubescu to jump. "We must know, so we can be killing the-"

"Den it will be costin' jah."

"Oh, not again!" Honeydew groaned.

"Four gold pieces." Nubescu confirmed, looking strict.

"Ah, fu- Do you have any gold, Xephos?" Honeydew asked, voice rising.

"Um...no." Xephos replied.

"Brilliant."

"There may have been some in the chest that's at the Check-point." Xephos suggested, turning and starting back up the stairs. "Do you have any?"

Honeydew froze and suddenly ran after him. "Oh...uh...maybe?" he said as he followed Xephos.

As he ran past Xephos gave him a look.

"Did you take it out of the chest?" he asked suspiciously as Honeydew passed him. "I know; you're a dwarf. Have you taken it while I was putting the armor on? Have you taken the gold?" he said accusingly, walking after the dwarf across the plaza at the foot of Verigan's Hold. "Did you spend it all? Beer and hookers. I know..." he said, voice thick with mirth as Honeydew reached the chest and began to empty something from his bag into it.

"I'll see if there's any gold in here, Xephos." he tried to say in an innocent voice. "I'll just find it right now..."

Xephos walked up to the chest as Honeydew finished pouring the small golden ingots out of a pouch that he tried to hide.

"Oh look, there it is in the chest. Gold ingots." Honeydew pointed at the blatantly obvious pile of finger long and wide slabs of gold.

"Thank you." Xephos held out his hand and after a few seconds of trying to seem confused, Honeydew handed him the pouch that the gold had been in while Honeydew stole it, and returned them to it, where he held onto them.

As they began to cross back across the plaza to the stairway, Honeydew asked what Xephos had found in his inspection of the carnival.

"Well the crates by where Nubescu's tent used to be were labeled with all of her things, and there were some more at the foot of the airship that looked like Bruno's gear, there were crates literally labeled things like: "Balls of Steel","Chest Wax", and my favorite: "Rocks for Breaking with Face."."

Honeydew mad a disgusted noise as they started down the stairs.

"Did you see Bruno or Mr. Banjo?" he asked.

"I did." Xephos confirmed, pointing over to beneath the skull where Strongman Bruno was breaking blocks of stone with his "Super-Human Strength." "And I did see Mr. Banjo when I was going up to look around the airship, but he seemed to by spying on you, and when he saw me he ran."

"I don't like that." Honeydew grumbled, looking about. "He's up to something. Also, where in the hell did that airship come from?"

"I think that it's actually made up from all of the wooden frames that they built their stalls out of, and it sort of all fits together."

"Thats ingenious."

They reached the bottom of the stairs to a very bemused looking Madame Nubescu, who accepted four of the twelve gold ingots easily.

"Now den...Let us begin." she croaked.

"You do like your gold, don't you?" Xephos remarked snidely. "You are obsessed with gold."

"What are you saying?" Honeydew asked as Nubescu began to mumble indecipherable words. "You aren't she's a gold digger?" he smiled.

Xephos snorted, when Nubescu threw her head back and began to mutter more loudly until it was almost a scream.

"Oh gods!" Xephos gasped as the wind began to blow more strongly. "She's going into a trance! Stand back!"

The Voodoo Lady began to suddenly shake and rise into the air, arms outstretched, her head thrown back and her entire body being racked by convulsions.

"Oh shit, this is way more violent than before!" Honeydew drew his sword. "What if we've done something horrible!?"

Then in an instant, the fit and wind subsided, and Nubescu dropped to the floor, still holding the map, and silent with her head bowed.

"Have...the spirits taken her?" Honeydew asked, holding his sword out in caution. "Or has _He_ gotten hold of her through it."

Suddenly, she looked up, seeming confused.

"Is no good." she sighed in an almost scared voice. "Decipher it I cannot."

"Oh?" Xephos said in surprise.

"Oh..." Honeydew repeated. "Oh balls."

Nubescu handed Honeydew back the map fragment, who put it in his bag, tightly pulling the draw cord. "Thank you." he said.

"What now, then?" Xephos asked as Honeydes sheathed his sword. "Do we get our money back?"

"No." Nubescu said shortly.

"_What!?"_ Honeydew shouted. "Carnies!"

Nubescu backed away.

"These gods damned carny-folk, they are no help whatsoever." Xephos growled.

"Dere be one man!" Nubescu blurted in fright.

"Oh?! What?" Honeydew stopped.

"So you are going to help." Xephos raised his eyebrow. "Thank gods for that."

"A druid of the ancient world," Nubescu admitted.

"It's a breadcrumb... a breadcrumb..."

"He be knowin' about maps and ting'."

"And "ting"?" Xephos asked skeptically. "What kind of "ting"?"

"Probably, nature and stuff." Honeydew thought aloud "Where can we find this druid?" he asked.

"Good question." Xephos said.

"I feel him near..." Nubescu informed them.

"...Where, exactly?" Honeydew pressed.

"Him be da brother, of dat fool Fumblemore." Nubescu revealed.

"Oh my gods! It's Fumblemore's brother!" Honeydew exclaimed.

"Ah..." Xephos murmered.

"Oh gods..."

"Maybe he'll do then?" Xephos theorised.

"Perhaps," Nubescu took a step forwards again. "You be checkin' in dat burned city." Nubescu said.

From the tone of her voice, Honeydew could tell it was a statement, not a suggestion. She knew he was there, whoever this man was.

"She means Mistral City, I guess." Xephos nodded. "Which is probably no longer on fire, because it's been nearly a week."

"Well, that is useful." Honeydew looked over towards The Skull, there a small stairway led up the side and into the mouth, presumeably a way out, or up to where the water slide had once been, but was now packed away. "Thank you kind lady!" he said to Nubescu. "We shall check on this man, but do you know what he is called?"

Xephos looked at him and he grinned. "It may help, I mean, If we go to Mistral City, it's probably going to be packed, there's going to be, like, a hundreds of people."

They both chuckled at this, until Nubescu gave her answer.

"I cannot see." Nubescu interrupted.

"Oh right, great." Honeydew moaned.

"Well, let's go see then and find out. We'll be fine." Xephos began to walk towards the exit via The Skull. "Thanks."

"So we leave through The Skull?" asked Honeydew after he'd thanked Nubescu as he walked after Xephos. "I don't remember seeing any door when we came through it the other day."

"Tell your friends about me!" Nubescu called after them as they reached the foot of The Skull, where Bruno seemed far too absorbed with his work to pay Honeydew any mind, and Honeydew had nothing to say to him either.

"She's trying to drum up some business." Xephos remarked as he followed Honeydew a door under The Skull's massive chin that on the inside of The Skull was camoflaged to look like a part of the rock. They continued under the wooden stairway and eventually out through the mouth of The Skull on the opposite side.

"So Mistral City again." Xephos said as he stood beneath The Skull's menacing incisors, looking out to the city.

"It doesn't seem to be on fire any more." Honeydew observed as he descened down the tongue of The Skull and onto the foot path that led through to the back road into Mistral. And he was right, although only the top the main Sky Platform was visible from the tongue, there seemed to be no fire, yet it also seemed rather more lush trees atop the platform than there should have been in a burned city.

"There's a lot more tree cover than I remember." Xephos said as they continued along the road in the rising sun. "Especially in a city that was on fire a few days ago. Do you remember it having that many trees before?"

"Well it did have some nice sort of leafy avenues." Honeydew replied as they followed the path over a small bridge and through the back road into Mistral. Oddly, the road leading through the city wall was covered in a moss that had been absent in their leaving, and there was no smell of burning in the air, only wet vegetation.

They came out through the tunnel and found themselves in darkness, a darkness caused by many tall trees that had most definitely not been there before.

"What the hell?" Honeydew asked as he stared up at the thick canopy.

Xephos walked down the flight of stairs that led from the walkway down to the City floor, which was covered in moss, lichen and fallen leaves dropped by the trees that seemed to cover the city.

"How the heck did this happen?" asked Xephos.

"This ain't normal." Honeydew said as he followed Xephos onto the ground.

The small waterway that seperated the landing of the stairs from the lumber mill was now green with algae and choaked with lily pads, and the buildings that Xephos could se between the thick trunks of the days old trees were masked by ivy and vines, like nature had taken back the city.

"...Maybe the druid did this?" asked Xephos as he jumped over the small waterway and wandered into the ruins of the lumber mill.

"I think that's likely." Honeydew said as he followed. "But where is he? We're going to have a hard time finding him in this mess."

"Hmm..." Xephos looked up through the broken roof of the mill, where a tree had taken root in the burnt and rotted wooden floor and shot up through the void. "Maybe one of us could climb a tree and assess the area or something.

"I'll get to it." Honeydew volunteered, looking up at the tree growing out of the building. "There aren't any low branches to grab, though."

"Well, you could go up the stairs and onto the second floor, there are branches that you could get there."

Honeydew looked up at the huge rent in the building where the second floor was at level with the trees lower most branches.

"Alright." he turned and walked over to where the badly damaged stairs ran up the back wall of the mill, past work benches and discarded tools all blacked by flames and decay. As he mounted the second floor the wooden planks beneath his feet creaked alarmingly, causing Xephos to call out to him. Honeydew gingerly made his way across the floor to where the massive gap in the mill had the thick tree growing out of, and teetering on the edge of the planks reached out for a branch on the tall tree. After getting a good grip the dwarf pulled himself up onto the branches and steadily made his way up the hg tree, soon disappearing into the canopy. Just as the branches began to thin and Honeydew grew worried that the tree wasn't tall enough for him to reach above the others he burst through the leaves and into the light.

"Oh my gods..." he gasped.

"What is it?" Xephos asked as he poked his head up next to Honeydew's calf, still below the leaf-line.

"What are you doing up here?"

"I followed you."

"You might hurt- fine, come look at this." Honeydew climbed further up the tree, which was actually quite taller than most of the others, until he was fully above the tree line, sitting in the boughs of the huge tree.

"Oh Jebus..." Xephos gaped when he saw.

The entirety of Mistral City was covered in the same huge trees, tall and forming a leafy blanket, blocking all view of the interior, stretching for miles beyond even the city walls, even the main of the sky platforms in the centre, the largest and now only one still floating, was swathed in dense foliage, the square tower that had once served as a dock bay on it was gone.

The entire vista was lit by the sun, nearing the height of it's cycle in the sky, causing the last few caps of snow that had covered the plains to the south to become moist and drip.

"That druid sure has been busy." Xephos said as a breeze caused their tree and all the others in the ocean of green to sway in a tide.

"_How_ did he do it though?" Honeydew asked as he began to climb back down.

"I dunno," Xephos admitted.

"You shouldn't have come up here." Honeydew warned as they slowly began to approach the second floor of the ruined mill.

"Why?" Xephos asked while he lowered himself onto it.

"You've been getting yourself hurt allot recently, Xephos." Honeydew told him as he followed after him. "I don't know what it is, but it seems almost as though someone or something far beyond our comprehension is purposefully trying to get you killed or putting you in dangerous situations for a purpose of entertainment."

Xephos turned and looked at Honeydew as he approached the stairs.

"You know what, Honeydew?" he said. "You're absolutely right."

They descended the stair, filling the forest that was Mistral City with peals of laughter.

"We should probably keep quiet." Honeydew suggested. "It's like night in here, and there'll be mobs spawning."

"That's a good point. We should keep moving."

"Where to then?" Honeydew asked.

Xephos looked out of the wrecked mill.

"We aren't too far from the Church of the Holy Record," Xephos pointed through the trees to where he thought he could see the walls of the church covered in vegetation. "and we could get to the Fountains through the cemetery next to it."

"Sounds good." Honeydew set off at a quick pace for the direction Xephos had pointed. "Let's find this druid."

Xephos led the was past the church, the roof of which had collapsed, and through the near inpenatrable graveyard that was so congested with tree that Honeydew and Xephos were forced to walk over the graves of the dead buried here.

As they reached the corner of the church Xephos heard a voice around the corner in the Fountains area, he gestured for Honeydew to remain quiet, and nocked an arrow into his bow, peering around the corner.

The Fountains in the City Center were far less constricted by tree life, the occasional small tree growing out of the pavement, managing to scrounge out a living in the colossal shadow of the last of the Sky Platforms, hanging omniously above the now cracked and decrepit fountains, grown green and stagnant. Standing in the shadow of the floating island they could see a man, his back turned to them, Xephos could just barely make out him. He was an old man with an unruly grey beard, and wore what seemed to be literally moss all over him, seemingly grown on his body like a cloak, the rancid smell of him met Xephos' nostils even from behind the church.

"No!" he faintly said in a thin gasping voice, like a old hippie. "Go the other way, pig! Listen to Swampy Bogbeard, man!" as he said it the large hairy pig that he was straddled bear-back across squealed and leapt into the one of the fountains, much to it's rider's complaints.

"There's out guy over there." Xephos pointed and Honeydew looked over in interest. "Let's go and talk to him, but let's go quietly, we don't want to scare him off."

"Why would he be scared off?"

"He's talking to a pig, Honeydew. and from that and the smell of hi I can say that he doesn't deal with people very often."

"Your right, let's go."

Silently, the two of them stalked across the plaza, the moss covering it masking their every step. Swampy had his back to them, trying to wrest the pig out of the water, and as they got closer to him not only did the pungent smell grow more intense, but they could see that his greasy grey hair was matted in many places and had many twigs and leaves stuck in it too, they also saw that he was thin to an almost emaciated degree, arms nearly skeletal and legs looking so brittle that they may break at any given moment.

As they came right up behind him, Swampy Bogbeard suddenly spun around, brandishing a staff of old, undecorated nearly petrified wood.

"What are you doing here!?" he yelled, lashing out and striking Honeydew on his helmet with the stave.

"Ow!" Honeydew cried out, jumping backwards in surprise at the power delivered by such a thin and seemingly weak man.

"Careful!" Xephos warned as Swampy struck Honeydew again. The dwarf retreated away from him towards Xephos, but the druid kept pursuit.

"Get out!" he yelled as they tried to run circles around the fountains. "My forest!"

"Oh gods, he's aggressive!" Xephos said as Swampy hit him with the staff on his helmet too. "He thinks this is his forest!"

"Oh gods! Oh gods!" Honeydew was swear as they ran. "It's not a forest, it's a city, you crazy bastard!"

"Wait!" Xephos yelled, stopping him and Honeydew next to the Fountain of Strength, which Swampy was was standing on the walls of, hardwood stick raised in anger.

"We need your help." Xephos said slowly while Honeydew considered bearing steel on the man. "We'll explain ourselves...I am-"

"You wear iron! You defile the earth for it's resources, man!" Swampy said angrily, stamping his staff against the ground in a rage.

"Oh gods..." Xephos sighed.

"We are friends of Fumblemore!" Honeydew spoke up from behind Xephos. "Your beloved brother!"

"We need your help with an evil map!" Xephos tried to reason. "Which we got from the Cult of Israphel. Show him the map Honeydew."

"Fumblemore, eh?" Swampy said with no degree of sympathy. "What did that fool do this time, man?"

When neither of them responded, he answered with:

"RUINED THE LAND, RUINED IT, MAN!"

"Fumblemore didn't burn down Mistral!" Honeydew objected. "It was...erm...Lysander... possibly...and the Cult of Israphel!"

"We don't really know. We don't know." Xephos said. "We can't point fingers."

"Baddies, basically." Honeydew simplified. "It was baddies." he stepped forwards. "We are the good guys!"

"It doesn't matter!" Swampy shouted. "IT'S RUINED!"

"Zombie!" Honeydew shouted as one came up and tried to grab Xephos.

Honeydew drew his sword and as Xephos ducked he beheaded it with a swing, sending the body to the floor.

"Gods, this place is so dangerous these days." Honeydew breathed as he looked over into the fountain of strength where a freshly killed pig's carcass was floating in the water, neck broken, probably from a fall from the floating island above.

Swampy looked over to it and grimaced. he picked up his staff and pointed it at the pig. A sudden jolt racked the pig's body, relining the animal's spine, when it leapt from the fountain with a squeal and darted for the trees.

"Woah!" Xephos followed it's path. "What? Did he just-"

Xephos was cut off by an hissing, and he only just managed to jump out of the way as a creeper exploded behind him, leaving a large crater in the ground.

"Creepers!" Swampy quailed. "RUINED THE LAND!"

"Okay," Honeydew spluttered as he swam to the side of the Fountain of Strength which he'd dived into to evade the creeper's explosion. "Balls to this, I'm just going to throw the map at him, Xephos. See what he makes of it."

While Swampy raged, Honeydew pulled himself up onto the side of the fountain and searched for the map piece. Finally he brought it out, thankfully the pocket that had held it in the bag was waterproofed.

"Here is a map." Honeydew roughly shoved the map at Swampy. "Now can we talk somewhere safer?"

"The Earth is as safe as-what is this?" Swampy took the map and began to study it.

Xephos was about to interrupt when an arrow shot into the ground only feet from Swampy, who didn't notice.

"Oh, shit skeletons!" Xephos turned and saw three skeletons emerging from the trees.

"For gods' sake!" Honeydew groaned as one ran in and tried to shoot Swampy again. Xephos and Honeydew both drew their swords and managed to dispatch the nearest one before it could loose a shot, then the charge turned to deal with the other two skeletal archers that had come forwards. As the second feel before their blades Swampy snapped out of his stupor, clubbing the last to death with his staff.

"Where did you find it, man?" he asked after the archers were all dead and none of them hurt.

"Er...Where did we get the map?" asked Honeydew uncertianly.

"We got it off Reverend John, remember?" Xephos reminded him. "In the Crumbling Ruin he dropped the map." he sighed. "Don't you pay attention."

"So it was Israphel's Cultists..._They_ burned this place, man...and they had the map..." Swampy Bogbeard said.

"That's right! That's right!" Honeydew answered.

"Yes!" Xephos agreed.

"I though that it was my careless brother. Maybe I am the fool..." Swampy looked about. "Nonetheless, you must meet me on the platform above..."

"What?" Honeydew asked.

"Don't defile any land. Use these." Swampy tapped his staff to the ground and on the ground in front of Xephos appeared half a dozen small saplings, and a strange sack that dropped next to it.

"What's this?" asked Honeydew as he dropped down onto the ground next to Xephos and picked up the small sack. "The platforms above?" he looked up.

"See you up there maaaaan..." Swampy leapt into the air and crossed his leg, when a small cloud was conjored beneath him, he pointed ahead with his staff and suddenly he was flying off, sitting on a cloud, up to the sky platform.

"Swampy, awaaaaaay..." he shouted as he drifted swiftly off.

"Woah gods!" Xephos cried, watching him go.

"WHAAT THE HELL?!" Honeydew yelped. "What?!"

"Um..."

"What?! How did he...Gods, I wish I could do that."

They stared after him for a while, the only sound a chicken and sheep nearby.

"He said not to defile any land, what did he mean by that?" Xephos asked.

"Well, he gave us some trees, babby trees. And this." Honeydew looked inside the sack, it's contents where only a fine sort of white powder.

"And then he flew off. So I guess we have to just use this powder on the trees..." Xephos moved over to where he judged the edge of the sky platform was.

"Maybe it makes them grow, really fast?" Honeydew asked as he followed.

"Maybe," Xephos said thoughtfully. "but these trees around here are nowhere near tall enough to reach up there. So I doubt these saplings will."

"Perhaps we should plant one on top of another?" Honeydew asked. "Like a ladder."

"A tree ladder. He was rather vague with his instructions." Xephos added.

"I don't think he's used to dealing with other people much, Xephos." Honeydew theorised. "I think that he's more used to dealing with Clucky McFeathers, and Wooly...Mc... Baaface?" Honeydew continued. "They're supposed to be a chicken and a sheep."

Xephos sighed.

"Terrible." he groaned. "You are terrible."

_Author's Notes:_

_Well I'm back on track for now. God knows how long it will last with School Exams in a month, but I'll try. I hope y'all weren't too fond of that 4th Wall that I broke :D_

_Remember to visit the homepage on the Yogscast Forums:_

?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek)

_And if you want to keep up-to-date with any developments, follow me on Twitter:_

/OJvanderBeek

I'll see y'all later!


	18. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 2: Chapter18

Chapter 18: Swampy Away!

"Where do we go up from?" Honeydew asked as they backed away from beneath the sky platform.

"Well," Xephos followed him, looking up at the platform to see where the ideal place to arrive would be. He could see on the side that faced them a huge rectangular tunnel entrance that presumably led to the interior of the floating island. "There's a hole on this side, we could aim for there, I guess."

"Are we even sure that this'll work?"

"We don't have much of a choice, he did take off with the map."

"Oh gods, he did, didn't he?" Honeydew walked a little back towards just below the very brink of the island. "This looks like it would be a good place to grow the trees, if they are the same height as the one's over there." He gestured over to the forest that had once been the rest of the city.

Swampy's voice came trailing down from the top of the island, high above, so it was barely audible.

"I will help you, but this map is incomplete...I must decipher the location of the missing pieces." Swampy told them from his high perch, out of sight.

"We'd better get up then." Honeydew took one of the saplings and stood it precariously on it's clumpy foot of loamy dirt and roots. "Okay, let's try this..." he reached into the bag of white powder and took a handful. "Are we sure we're not doing this to make a fool of ourselves?" he asked as he threw the musty smelling powder onto the sapling.

As the word left his lips there was a silent explosion from within the sapling and in an instant the tiny sapling was one of the tall trees surrounding them. The transformation was too quick for their eyes to trace, and one of the young tree's low branches struck out and sent Honeydew stumbling backwards with a red weal upon his chest.

"Oh gods!" he cried out.

"Carefully does it." Xephos warned as they cautiously took a step towards the tree. It's roots had seemed to pierce the pavement and send huge cracks through it, allowing the tree to take root, but it was only hardly a third of the way up the divide between them and the sky platform.

"Now we'll need to climb on top of that, then." Xephos bent to grab the saplings, untying the cord that kept his pack closed and placing as many as he could in in before drawing it shut, the tops still jutting out.

"I can't believe that worked." Honeydew slung the sack containing the powder over his shoulder. "But what now, we plant another one on top of this tree?"

"I think so."

"This isn't very bloody safe." Honeydew hoisted himself into the tree and began to climb to the top, followed by Xephos. "This powder stuff is incredible, it's like a magical fertiliser. It even smells like bonemeal." Honeydew called down.

"It's probably enchanted bonemeal." Xephos deduced as he followed the dwarf.

As the began to near the top the trunk thinned and the tree began to sway in the breeze, and Xephos began to worry about how much it would once there was another one, or even two trees on top of this one.

As Honeydew slowly climbed to the peak, he called out to Xephos for another sapling, which was handed up to him. Honeydew carefully balanced the sapling in a crook between the two highest branches, and climbed down beneath it, drawing a handful of magical bonemeal until he was next to Xephos a few yards beneath the sapling.

"I hope this works." Xephos clutched the boughs of the tree tightly.

Honeydew threw the bonemeal at the sapling, and in a heartbeat it too was turned into a tall tree, reaching still higher into the sky, but not yet high enough. The roots of this tree moulded it into the one beneath it, almost forming a single plant, which began to swing more drasitcally in the wind.

"Wow, it did work!" Honeydew climbed upwards and into the extension of the tree. "It worked well."

"Oh, that's quite clever." Xephos said uncertainly as he too ascended, the tree waving in the breeze, caught by the greedy green fingers of the tree.

They continued upwards, Honeydew moaning every now and again as the tree moved with the wind.

"It's a little bit tricky..." he stopped and waited for Xephos near the top, where he asked for and received another sapling which he placed in a fork in the two highest branches once more and climbed below it with Xephos.

"I think that we'll be needing another one after this one, at that will be it." Xephos said.

"Yeah, I think so too." Honeydew took another handful of powder from the sack and as the tree stablised from a sudden gust, he threw it at the sapling.

Another, stronger gust sent the tree creaking as the tree bent with the added surface area of the third tree. Xephos clung to the trunk and Honeydew cried out as it shook, they both looked up, and there they noticed that the sapling that had just had the enchanted bonemeal applied to it had grow exponentially. It's height was nearly twice the size of those before it, reaching all the way up to the island above them, but it's boughs were longer and foliage denser, and caught the wind like a sail, whipping the huge, thin tree back and forth like a reed.

"It's a big one!" Xephos yelled out.

"That's what she said!" Honeydew grinned despite the curcumstances.

"I can't believe you, sometimes!" Xephos reached out gingerly and continued to climb. "We should get up! The wind is building!" he had to yell over another gust, longer but less strong than the last.

"Okay, go!" Honeydew began to follow. "Careful, though!"

Progress was painstakingly slow as they continued up the tree at a glacial pace, frequently stopping for the building wind. Soon they were close to being level with the tunnel entrance, but the wind was blowing the tree back and forth with an almost sentient visciousness, sending the trunk and branches creaking in pain.

The tip had snapped clean off when they came level with the tunnel, it's open mouth, a sanctuary from the wind, but as the two stood on branches either side of the tree trunk, the wind would not cease long enough to allow them to step off onto it.

"It's no use!" Xephos yelled. "We're going to have to jump!"

"What!?" Honeydew said, startled. "Are you crazy!?"

Below them there came a creak and a splitting noise as the tree gave a start, but held itself.

"It's the only way we're getting off this thing alive!" Xephos told him in desperation.

Honeydew looked at the gap and the jump they'd have to make.

"I don't know, man." he said uncertainly.

"If you time it, the momentum will add to your jump!"

"I still don't know even then!" Honeydew said worriedly.

"I could toss you, then." Xephos offered impatiently.

Honeydew looked at him seriously, hard determination behind his eyes.

"_No one tosses a dwarf."_ he stated.

"Well, I'll see you there, then!" Xephos said as he adjusted himself to jump.

The wind then blew, sending the tree snapping towards the tunnel mouth. as it began to slow, Xephos leap out, his lithe body sailing out across the high gap, the momentum of the tree's movement sending him flying into the tunnel with room to spare, landing with a roll on the stone floor.

"There!" he called over to Honeydew, who had not moved. "Come on!"

Honeydew began to adjust himself on the tree, making ready to jump, when there was a cracking noise louder than thunder.

Xephos looked to halfway up the tree where the white inner flesh of the tree showed against the brown bark as the tree snapped at the middle. The last gust it encountered sent it forward towards the tunnel for a last time, and Honeydew's only opertunity to make his leap.

"You have to jump!" Xephos called over to him as the tree bent forwards to the sound of more cracking. "Go! Do it!"

As the tree continued in it's fall Honeydew seemed paraylsed, until he did jump, but he was too late. The tall dwarf leaped through the air, but he had nowhere near enough distance to reach the platform.

Xephos saw this and ran forwards, diving along the ground, causing his steel armor to spark against the stone floor, his arm outstreched to his friend's hand as it tried to reach for the brink of the platform and missing.

As Honeydew realised that he'd missed the jump, he felt something grab at his wrist, and looked up to see Xephos lying on the ground on the platform above, his arm reaching out and holding Honeydew's as the tree hit the ground with a snapping of branches that could've been bone if Xephos hadn't been quick enough.

"Not as much fun about being on the other end, is it?" asked Xephos, panting.

"Just pull me up." Honeydew growled.

With some effort Xephos managed to pull Honeydew out of the void and back onto the sky platforms, where they lay panting for a while.

"Are we here?" Honeydew asked, sitting up. "Oh, we are!" he got to his feet and walked deeper into the wide square tunnel. "Aw yeah!"

"Wow. Swampy's gonna be impressed with this. It's a very elegant solution." Xephos said sarcastically as he looked out over the edge of the island, the wind blowing his hair, which was beginning to become long and unkempt back against his face. The sun was past it's annex, and was heading down towards the horizon over the plain of tossing leaves. He turned to follow Honeydew who was at the end of the tunnel, which seemed familiar to him.

"Where the hell is he?" Honeydew asked as Xephos joined him at the tunnel's end, where it turned directly right and continued out and over into the air. There were also two thin stairways, on the left heading down and on the right heading up, and both had signs hanging above them directing them to the city walkways.

"Oh gods, I've been here before." Xephos gasped. "When I went off a different path to you and Lysander," he gritted his teeth at the name. "to get back down to the Lower City the other day."

"Oh yeah, so you came from this stair, here?" Honeydew pointed to the one heading upwards.

"Yeah," Xephos read the sign. "But there are no City Walkways left any more, so he must be upstairs."

Xephos led the way up the dark stairway, which he remembered emerged in the square tower. They continued upwards around the spiral stairway, hearing the wind thrashing the trees atop the island, when Xephos emerged into the light of the day.

He looked around and found himself in a sheltered glen atop the island, surrounded by trees, forming a wind-break, the only remnant of any structure was a small section of wall that was covered in moss, and leaning upon it's side was Swampy Bogbeard.

"There he is!" Honeydew yelled as he climbed out of the stairs. "Aww...This place is lovely!" he added shrilly.

"Ah!" Swampy stood up straight. "You made it! Did you defile any land?" he asked.

"Nope!" Xephos answered, wondering worriedly if Swampy would think that the tree being broken by the wind was "Defilement".

"Quiet the opposite." Honeydew said too.

"Brilliant!" Swampy praised.

"There was a massive tree!" Honeydew continued, making an obvious attempt to brown-nose the druid. "You'd love it."

"Now, hold on while I-wait a second, who are you two anyway?" Swampy said, their introductions delayed no longer, they presented themselves rather hurriedly to Swampy. "Alright then, Honeydew and Xephos," he began again. "Hold on, while I channel the energies of nature itself!"

"Eh?" Honeydew said while Swampy knelt before the last fragment of the tower, holding Karpath's map fragment in one hand and his staff in the other.

There was a sudden build of wind, circling the inside of the grove like a tornado, sweeping over to Swampy, who began to float into the air again.

"Ooh, what's he doing?" Honeydew asked.

"I'd stand back." Xephos backed towards the stand of trees behind them. "What is he doing?"

"The map pieces..." Swampy spoke, sounding distant. "...One is surrounded, by cutlass and cannon..."

"Make a note of this." Honeydew reminded Xephos.

"...The other is held by a lord of the sky..."

"Oh..." Xephos groaned.

"Oh no, which one?" Honeydew pondered if he'd sooner fight Lysander or Jasper.

"...And one is buried deep below bedrock...I see beards, man! I see beards!"

"What!?" Xephos said in shock.

"Gods, you don't think that he means...my people?" Honeydew cautioned.

Swampy suddenly dropped to the ground, looking haggard.

"I am...exhausted." he stood and turned to the two adventurers.

"I don't blame you." Honeydew blew out.

"That's very cryptic." Xephos tugged on his goatee.

"I can do no more for you at this time." Swampy explained.

"That's alright, you have a rest, and give me my map." Honeydew walked towards Swampy, who was leaning heavily on his staff. The druid reluctantly handed over the paper, but left them with one more piece of advice.

"The first map piece lies through Skull Pass." he told them as he gave Honeydew the map. "Follow the trail, test your archery skills...Go!" he finished.

"Okay!" Xephos walked for the stairs.

"Cheers...er..."man"." Honeydew said as he followed Xephos. "We go back the way we came?"

"What this about archery skills?" Xephos asked as he got to the stairs. "I suppose we'll find out. Goodbye, Swampy Bogbeard!"

"Bless you, you crazy bastard!" Honeydew said as he and Xephos dropped into the stairs.

"Farewell, don't defile the land!" Swampy's voice called after them. "Or I'll find you and kill you!"

"We'll have to try not to, then," Xephos said as he followed Honeydew down the stairs.

"Oh, gods how are we going to get down?" Honeydew reminded. "The tree broke, so what do we do?"

"We may have to jump for the fountains." Xephos reasoned.

"Gods, we might have to." Honeydew said, but as they emerged at the bottom of the stairs, the mouth of the tunnel ahead of them was near half filled with leaves.

They ran forwards, and to their surprise found that the tree had re-grown, but the once slender trunk had become thick, twisted and the top branches had grasped the sky platform, like a huge claw, prevent it from moving in the wind. It was almost to good to be true.

"Well," Honeydew said. "That's awefully convenient."

"That bonemeal of Swampy's must be some pretty strong stuff." Xephos kicked one of the thick branches coiled around the rock tunnel entrance, just to see if it was sound.

"Do you think he did this to the tree while we weren't looking?" Honeydew asked as he carefully made his way along the boughs and to the trunk where he started to climb down.

"I don't know...maybe." Xephos said as he followed.

"He's a strange one." Honeydew replied.

"Yeah," Xephos looked through the branches of the wilding tree to where swampy's sanctuary was. "Well he's Fumblemore's brother, so he was bound to he a little bit weird. Fumblemore's weird enough."

"This is true."

They were relieved to finally have their feet on the solid earth once again when they got to the foot of the massive tree, and wasted no time in setting off back the way they'd came through the trees, past the mill and over the rivulet towards and through Skull Pass just as Swampy instructed.

As the the companions emerged from under the huge stone chin of the Skull facing Verigan's Hold and descended the stair that led to the ground, however, they heard someone call out.

"AH! LITTLE BABBY BACK FOR MORE!" yelled the unmistakable voice of Strongman Bruno.

Honeydew turned savagely towards Bruno, who was standing below the stairs that led out of Skull Pass, the great hulking man was moving huge obsidian blocks to the airship, and had just returned for another.

"Don't you start!" Honeydew scolded Bruno, who smiled smugly as he stood in front of the obsidian.

"You need _much_ more practice to beat the likes of me, little babby." Bruno jeered.

"Come on, Honeydew." Xephos warned. "We'll find a way to get one up on him some day."

"Hmm..." Honeydew looked at his feet and noticed small shoots winding their way out of the cracked pavement, and had an idea. "Nah." he said to Xephos. "I'd prefer to get one up now."

Honeydew reached into the bag of magical bonemeal and pulled out a handful, quickly throwing it at Bruno's feet.

A second later, a squat tree stood there, the only sign of Bruno were his colossal arms flailing about either side of the tree, a muffled yell could be heard from Bruno within the tree.

"Break your way out of that!" Xephos yelled as he and Honeydew fled the scene, nearly doubled over in laughter.

"Sweet, sweet revenge." Honeydew looked over and to his disappointment saw Bruno was already breaking out of the tree, and he would likely not be in an agreeable mood once he escaped his wooden prison.

"Let's get out of here before he breaks free." Xephos suggested, and the two of them fled over to where Madame Nubescu's tent had once been, but now even the crates were gone.

"What was it we were supposed to do?" Xephos asked. "Archery? Where do we do that?" he asked.

"Oh, look!" Honeydew pointed behind Xephos, to an archery range at the foot of the hill that led up to Verigan's Hold, normally blocked by Nubescu's tent. "It's here."

They walked into the range, where they stood by a fence which on the other side was a long alley of sand with a large target at the end of it.

"So what do we do here?" asked Xephos, who examined the small rooms behind them, likely used for storing bows and ammunitions, of which there were plenty, and he shared out with Honeydew to restock on arrows and bolts.

"He said: "Test your archery skills," so let's just take it literally, see if that works." Honeydew pulled out his crossbow and loaded with one of his new bolts. "So I'll take a shot at the target."

He extended his arm and held the crossbow and steadied it with his other hand, peering down the sights. Honeydew pulled the trigger and the bolt shot through the late afternoon sun, thudding into the center of the target far down the range.

The companions waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened, and after another moment of silence, Honeydew groaned loudly.

"Well bugger, it was a good shot too." Xephos said. "Nothing's happened. Did you miss?"

"No, look!" Honeydew vaulted over the fence and ran to the end of the archery range to retrieve his bolt. "Look," he yelled back to Xephos as he neared. "a bolt right in the middle."

Honeydew frowned in puzzlement, but as he neared the target his next footfall nearly sent him into a hole at the foot of the target.

"Whoah, there's a hole here!" he called to Xephos, who leapt over the fence and ran towards him.

"Oh?" Xephos ran up to him. "Really?"

"Yeah, it must have opened up when my bolt hit the target." Honeydew looked down the hole, the size of a manhole going deep into the rock, niches cut into the wall as ladder rungs, and a fait light glowed from below.

"Do you think this is what Swampy meant?" Xephos asked as he knelt to examine the pit.

"If I shoot the target again do you think that it will open another hole?" Honeydew asked.

"What?" Xephos asked loudly. "No, this is like a secret passageway, you idiot!"

"Oh right." Honeydew chuckled. "Okay, I didn't know. I'm sorry, I didn't know it worked like that." H elowered himself into the hole, and started to climb down the claustrophobic hole, closely followed by Xephos.

It didn't take long for them to reach the conclusion of the shaft, it came to an end in a very short hallway, just wide enough for two to walk abreast, the stone walls only disturbed by a heavy looking wooden door on the right wall at the end of the hall next to a hunk of glowstone set roughly into the wall.

They walked cautiously to the end of the tunnel where the door stood, above it a sign reading:

_Warning:_

_Tight Spaces._

"Oh." Honeydew said as Xephos pushed the door open, leading to a small room carved from the earth's stone featureless save for a small pool of water and a sign above it.

"Aha, here we go." Xephos pushed into the dark room, pulling out his sword, it's glow allowing him to read the sign above the pool. ""Bootlegger's Pass to BBQ Bay"." he read.

"Where's the Pass?" Honeydew said as he entered the room.

"The only thing here is a single hole of water." Xephos walked over to it. The hole was extremely small, barely large enough for a person to fit through. "You don't think..."

Honeydew suddenly reentered the room, in one hand he was holding the chunk of glowstone that he'd wrenched from the wall outside. He strode over to the hole and dropped the clear water with a splash.

With interest they watched the glowing rock in it's journey downward. It sunk quickly and as it reached the bottom of the hole it's light brightened the entire way back up through the hole in the clear water, nearly thirty yards below them, before to their surprise it was swept away by the current that seemed to pull it south.

"Oh gods, we're going to have to go down there aren't we?" Xephos asked.

"Yep," he nodded. "There's no way any of the walls have been put up to cover another entrance, so this has to be the way."

"Crap, look how thin it is!" Xephos pointed. "We'll have to take off our packs and either out them in front of us or leave them. Even then we might have trouble. And then there's the fact we may drown."

"Well what choice to we have?" Honeydew asked, taking off his pack, and putting his iron helmet inside as a precaution.

"You can't be serious!"

Honeydew walked over to the hole and dropped his bag into it, which was sunk away like a rock in the dark water, and told Xephos to give him his own pack.

Reluctantly Xephos handed it over, and it followed Honeydew's into the murky depths.

"Can't go back now." Honeydew said, stepping uncertainly towards the hole.

"Yes we could. We didn't really need al of that crap anyway."

"The map fragment was in there too."

"What!?" Xephos yelled.

"I'm going in!" Honeydew yelled, and jumped into the hole, his arms up in the air as he disappeared into the deep dark water.

"Gods damn it!" Xephos yelled, taking a step towards the water. He just stared at it for a while, then he sheathed his sword, took a breath as deep as his lungs could manage and jumped feet first into the water.

The tunnel walls were slick and smooth, and he sunk through the water like a stone, feeling like something was pulling him down. Even when he opened his eyes it was as good as having them closed, the only thing he saw were tiny silver bubbles streaming past him, either his or Honeydew's. As Xephos began to wonder what had happened to Honeydew his lungs began to burn for air, he struggled against the tight stone walls, encircling him like a prison, occasionly exhaling air into his cheeks and inhaling it again, but the air was feeble and stale. Just as he though that he was at his end, he felt the stony floor beneath his feet, and felt the current pulling on him. Opening his eyes he saw a light in the direction of the current, and in his newfound freedom kicked out for it, allowing the current to take him. The water pulled him and his heart burnt for air, Xephos kicked his legs with his remaining strength, and then he felt air on his face.

Xephos gasped for air like it was the last breath he'd even take. It was many long seconds before he opened his eyes, and found himself in a stone basin at that led into a tunnel, the water that they'd swum through surged out of a hole in the wall and through a rusted grate he lay atop of. Xephos sat up and looked to his side, where Honeydew lay, half over the edge of the basin, sucking in air like a fish out of water, both packs lying sodden on the ground in front of him.

"...I told you...it was a bad...idea..." Xephos panted, hitting Honeydew on the back.

"...We got here...didn't we?" he replied. "Urgh...am I dead yet?" he pulled himself up, groggily pulling himself out of the basin and into the tunnel, retrieving his helmet and pack, and then helping Xephos out.

"Never again." Xephos said. "What the hell was Swampy thinking sending us here?"

"We'll probably find out down this tunnel." Honeydew looking into the distance, and not bothering to attempt to light a torch, picked the chunk of glowstone out of the basin and started down the tunnel.

"It's very dark in here." he commented as Xephos followed after him, shivering slightly. "So this is the top secret path that the bootlegger used when they came from this...place... BBQ bay, was it?"

"During the prohibition of Mistral City or something like that, probably." Xephos guessed. "Transferring "bootlegged hooch", and "contraband liquor" for the Skylords, maybe. Or it might be the Carnival just use it, for their cheating ways."

the tunnel turned abruptly to the left.

"I don't think that it's got anything to do with the Carnival, though." Honeydew replied. "Because the Carnival comes and goes, but this looks ancient." he tapped the rock as the tunnel took a right.

"Well what about Nubescu's Scrying Chamber?" Xephos asked as he followed the light and Honeydew's sillhoutte. "That was underground, and I even saw the trapdoor to it when I was snooping about."

"It was probably a supply room for the bootleggers." Honeydew theorised. "But they renovated it to their own means. Because this rock has been here for-Oh..." Honeydew stopped dead.

"What is it?" Xephos asked, wiping the water off his face.

"It's a dead end." Honeydew lowered the glowstone and stepped to the side, revealing that the tunnel had been boarded up, there was also a sign hanging on the boards reading:

_Barbeque Bay:_

_Smuggler's Cove._

"Just smash through it." Xephos suggested impatiently.

"Alright." Honeydew drew his battleaxe and set to savaging the boards.

"Oh!?" he said as the first fell away.

"What?" Xephos asked.

"There we go!" Honeydew said as he smashed down the rest of the wall, and stepped out into the cool, salty air.

Xephos followed Honeydew out onto the sandy beach at the foot of a small cliff that the tunnel emerged from, filled with the sound of crashing waves and the smell of the sea as the water reflected the moon's rays, which had rose in their time underground. But there was something far more interesting about the scene.

"Oh my dear gods." Honeydew gasped as he looked to the left of their exit and sitting in the middle of the huge bay was an enormous wooden structure, a huge double storied wooden platform, large enough to sustain whole buildings, and on the top floor there was even a small ship upon in for some reason. And on practically all sides, the structure was splitting off jetties that were docking huge ships, sails drawn and hulls coloured magnificently, the entire scene out of a children's story.

"That must be Barbeque Bay there, Xephos." Honeydew stared at the twinkling lights in awe.

"Wow..." Xephos said as he tried to absorb the scene.

"Isn't it beautiful and magnificent?" Honeydew asked.

Then across the water there came a loud shout from a gruff voice somewhere on the distant Barbeque Bay.

"The waters are a peaceful haven for us pirates!" the deep harsh voice yelled. "We cannot allow you to stay!"

"Is he talking to us?" Xephos asked Honeydew, but when he looked, the dwarf had ran over to a small jetty just right of them, where five or so small boats that seemed some strange hybrid between a canoe and a dinghy, each with a singe oar in them.

Xephos ran after him just as another voice floated across the water.

"Aye, yer crew be eatin' four o' mine already! Ack!" the voice seemed aged and thick with an accent of Smottland. "We cannae' be havin' it!"

"Oh god's what's going on?" Xephos asked as he and Honeydew got into their own boats. "They're having an argument with someone." Honeydew noted as he began to paddle out towards the bay.

"I have just as much right to be here as you, Jock." this voice was throatier than the others, and by far more savage.

"Oh gods, another one." Honeydew said as they began to approach Barbeque Bay.

"Is he the bad one?" Xephos asked as he followed Honeydew, the two o fthem increasing their pace. "He sounds bad."

"Or have ye forgotten the code?" the same voice continued.

"Gods, he sounds terrifying." Xephos looked towards the nearest jetty on the bay as they approached.

"I have not, Grimjaw!" Jock replied. "But we cannot be allowing you to stay! You bring the taint with you!"

Grinjaw growled at this as Xehpos and Honeydew approached the bay, angling themselves to the nearest warf.

The accented voice spoke again as they pulled themselves into the jetty, but it's accent made his word undecipherable.

"Oh gods, I don't like where this is going." Honeydew said as he got out of the boat, and gave Xephos an arm up onto the wooden platform.

"Pirates." Xephos said. "It's always pirates."

_Author's Notes:_

_Well, another week, another chapter. I find myself savoring the small occasions in which I can write, and also notice them growing fewer as the gap between present and exams grows smaller. I actually enjoyed this chapter, in the videos this episode was quite dull, so I attempted to jazz it up a bit, as I promised a few of you. ;) Good morning, afternoon or evening to all of you!_

_~O.J_

_P.S: Remember to visit our homepage:_ _ ?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek)_

_And my Twitter to keep to date with updates:_ _ /OJvanderBeek_


	19. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter19

Chapter 19: The Pirates of BBQ Bay.

Honeydew and Xephos cautiously crossed the coarse wooden platform towards where the voices were coming from, their argument evidently becoming more and more heated.

"Gods, here they are." Xephos said in a low voice as the passed beneath a log culvert that marked where the wharf met with the rest of the monolithic platform jutting fro the ocean. Before them on a large flat area at the side of the bay facing towards open sea stood three men, two had their backs to Honeydew and Xephos as they entered the main platform, one was a thin old man with long fine white hair and beard dressed in a ripped long-coat, far from the days of it's glory with an old grey dog sitting next to him, the other was a tall, broad shouldered man wearing a black tricorn hat over his long curly black hair and a red coat, similar to his fellow's, save in better repair. These two seemed to be arguing with a third member of the party, a haggard looking man with matted grey hair and a once teal coat. He bore on his lined and enraged face the look of someone who'd lost all love for anything in the world.

"We have to be careful," Honeydew said, pulling Xephos back slightly behind the culvert. "These are pirates, I'm not sure if they're worse or better than carnies."

"They don't seen to have noticed us yet." Xephos commented quietly.

The tall pirate in red then barked out: "Ye must leave now, Grimjaw. We'll not allow ye to stay." his voice was deep and harsh, sounding like sharp thunder rubbles in a black sky.

Grimjaw, the haggard looking pirate looked suddenly over the red pirate's shoulder, staring right at Honeydew and Xephos, who abruptly froze.

"Well," he said, voice deep, and as husky as though he'd swallowed dust, and turned back to the two other pirate in the all but empty Barbeque Bay. "If I cannot make port here, Jock Fireblast, then nobody shall!" he declared, suddenly turning and quickly marching to the end of the platform and dropped himself into a row boat, beginning to row savagely out towards a huge black ship in the bay beyond.

"He cannae mean to attack the bay?" the white haired pirate said as Xephos and Honeydew slowly attempted to to sneak closer.

"I shan't put it past Grimjaw Slugface to attempt it." Jock fireblast, the red coated pirate turned, nearly running into Honeydew, who had gone before Xephos.

"Eer...Hello me hearties!" Honeydew yelled, causing Jock, who they now saw in entirety, with low bushy beard, dark eyes and a huge cutlass at his hip, to stare at the dwarf. He seemed to be the kind of man who wasn't surprised by much.

"...I thought that it was a traditional greeting?" Honeydew protested to the big man, a good foot taller than him.

Xephos looked around in worry. What had first seemed like an empty area he suddenly saw was full of pirates, but they were hiding, peering out behind doors, barrels, and anything they could hide behind, clearly the confrontation that had been at hand was something to fear indeed. The pirates were slowly edging out from behind their cover, looking ready to attack if their captain, presumably Jock or the other with the accent who strangely hadn't turned from his original direction.

Jock looked as though he was about to speak out, but another voice carried across the water, Grimjaw Slugface calling out over the bay.

"Fire!" he ordered in his harsh voice.

From the silhouette of the black ship that Grimjaw was rowing towards there came the sound of many mighty ballistas loosing their bolts. Hardly anyone was able to hind cover before the first volley of ballista bolts thudded into the heavy wooden struts of Barbeque Bay, some finding their rest in the body of an unfortunate pirate.

"What's going on!?" Xephos yelled as the crews of pirates began to fall into disarray around them, seeking cover or aiding their fallen comrades.

"Grimjaw you dog!" Jock yelled after recovering himself.

"Wha's append?" slurred the white haired captain, still with his back to them. "Who's talkin'?"

"Angus, you're facing the wrong way, again!" Jock yelled.

Angus, then turned more or less towards Honeydew, Xephos and Jock.

"Holy shit!" Honeydew yelled. "He's got no eyes!" The dwarf pointed at the old pirate, both eyes covered with two eyes patches over his aged and scarred face.

At that moment a silence descended on the erratic crew, they all turned to Honeydew, who now looked rather sheepish. One or two made to draw their weapons at this insult Angus with across the bay there came the sound of a ballista firing again, and the thump of it embedding it's bolt itself in the the main wooden beam on the south western corner of the platform. All eyes went to it, and soon they realised another noise was coming from it. A hiss.

"Down!" Jock yelled, grabbing Xephos and Honeydew before throwing them both heavily to the ground when the dynamite strapped to the bolt exploded, sending shrapnel cascading over the platform as pirates dived for cover, some too late, becoming splintered by frags of timber thick as an arm.

"Oh my good grief!" Honeydew wheezed as Jock stood, pulling both him and Xephos up with him. "What the heck was that?"

"Grimjaw's gone mad!" Xephos coughed, looking up.

The floor was covered in splinters, save one untouched section where Angus Eyeless and his dog stood, looking about in confusion.

"Wha'sh all dish' noicesh?" Angus asked.

"Everyone stop pissing about!" Jock yelled over the cries of of the crews, silencing all of them. "There'll be another volley of bolts coming soon, so get to out ballistas and return fire, dammit!"

A roar of approval went up among the crews, and many ran off to man the large siege crossbows, others helped the injured move off, and some retrieved their own weapons; bows, crossbows, harpoons, axes, cutlasses some even wrenching the ballista bolts from the ground, ready to attempt a boarding of Grimjaw's vessel.

"What the hell is going on!?" Xephos asked.

"I think we've got ourselves in the middle of a pirate war." Honeydew groaned.

"Captain!" an older pirate called to Jock Fireblast, and pointed to the upper deck above where the pillar had been blown out. The entire upper south-western corner of Barbeque Bay was hanging precariously over the lower, groaning alarmingly and threatening to give way.

"By Blackbeard's beard!" Jock swore, turning to the pirate before him. "Spread the word that no-one is to go on the south-western corner of the upper platform, it could drop at any moment! Get to it!"

"Muckle!" Angus swore at Grimjaw Slugface, even though he faced the wrong direction.

"Oh gods, this looks like a vital part of the bay." Xephos said to Honeydew, pointing at the demolished pillar. "Perhaps we should leave..."

As the two turned and made to run off, but before they could take a step, Jock's heavy hand fell on their collars, pulling them back.

"Ah, deckhands." he rumbled in an intimidating voice. "Willing to earn a few doubloons?" However the way he said this implied no doubloons.

"...Err...for sure!" Xephos said uncertainly as Jock lowered his head between them, menacingly.

"we don't need no stinkeen' doubloons!" Honeydew tried to pull away, but Jock's grip only tightened.

"And, should you comply with my request, I'll forgive ye' of that slight ye' made against Angus. If not, I'll have ye' keelhauled."

Jock let them both go and stood fully up again. Xephos and Honeydew, quickly turned to face the threatening pirate captain.

"Good!" Jock Fireblast growled over the noise of battle. "Now head over to Angus' ship and wake Spacker! The ship is the big yellow one!" he pointed east of the bay. "He knows where the supplies are, and you'll need them to repair the pillar. Now off with ye!" he dismissed them, turning and disappearing into a swathe of other pirates. "Angus, you're facin' the wrong way again!" he yelled, followed by an: "Aye!"

"So much for making a quick getaway." Xephos grumbled, drawing his sword and following Honeydew across the massive platform of Barbeque Bay, weaving between pirates and buildings towards the eastern side.

"Well there's someone called Spacker, so now I'm interested..." Honeydew said. "Why is that?" Xephos dodged a young cabin boy running towards a ballista, carrying a bunch of huge bolts under his arms.

"I'm surprised that you don't remember." Honeydew chuckled, pushing between two barrels. "Back in Dwergholm you and I went out and sampled some spacker. The stuff really gets you off your face. Oh yes that was an interesting evening."

"Gods, spacker is a drug, isn't it?"

"Since you're a novice to spacker you probably won't remember anything. You probably wouldn't want to remember anything what you did that night, anyway." Honeydew smiled. "But I must say, I've never heard "It's a long way to Pick-arrery" sung so creatively."

"Gods, just stop." Xephos told him.

After much more maneuvering about people and buildings on the platform they finally came to the edge of the colossal wooden structure, where, pressed up against the fences bordering the trim of the bay they could see a huge galleon, adorned with magnificent yellow streaks along it's side with two levels of ballistae peering through their slots, the bolt tips glinting in the moonlight as the sails flapped dully from the masts. Further down the platform they found a boarding plank to the galleon, peering back towards the battle that was commencing. Flaming bolts were being issued toward Barbeque Bay, setting the great drapes of decorated sail cloth hanging from the upper platform alight before they were doused by watchful pirates, who returned fire. The thrumming of ballistae cords filled the air like the chirping of crickets, followed by the thuds of impact and screams.

"We need to hurry up and find Spacker." Honeydew said as they set foot on the ship, avoiding a few late comers to the battle, who ran off down the gangway yelling insults.

"Do you suppose that he's a dwarf?" Xephos asked as they crossed to the center of the deck and descended a small flight of stairs to the second level of the ship.

"Maybe..." Honeydew responded as he and Xephos pushed further into the belowdecks.

It was rather gloomy, only lit by a bare few lanterns that would sway occasionally as the ship rocked on the swell.

"So where is this guy?" Xephos asked as Honeydew led him towards beneath the main house at the rear of the ship.

"I don't know." Honeydew said. _"Spacker!"_ he yelled, to no response. "I think he's in bed." he added.

"We were told to wake him up weren't we?" Xephos asked as Honeydew opened a door to what now looked like the crew's quarters.

"He may be in here somewhere-" Honeydew began, when a rattling snore shook the room, followed by the stench of beer.

Honeydew looked at Xephos.

"Okay." he said. "I'm now pretty sure he's a dwarf."

They walked between the rows of bunks toward the sound, growing ever louder, along with the scent of beer and decay.

As they reached the end of the isle of bunks they located the bed which Spacker lay in. Xephos felt that he was going to be sick.

On the bed lay the strong stunted form of a dwarf, eyes closer, and wearing a threadbare tartan kilt and a black tricorn hat, skull motif emblazoned upon it. But it was obvious that the smell of death came from him. Across the dwarf's bare midriff was a huge jagged rent, the flesh around it torn, and within the hole Spacker's dull guts lay glistening, a couple of ribs showing at the top of the injury, dry blood bordering the entire wound. Spacker's skin had turned an unsettling shade of green, and even his beard adorned with rings and bones, once would've been not too dissimilar to Honeydew's seemed to have turned a dead shade of burnt orange.

"Wha-ahh!" Honeydew gagged at the scene before him.

"Someone killed him!" Xephos yelled. "Oh shit, it may have been those two pirates who ran past us when we came aboard! How old do you think the wound is?" Honeydew took a step closer to the dead dwarf, grudgingly studying the abrasion.

"This make no sense...It looks months, even years old! And the intestines look as though they've been stitched back together-Ah!"

Honeydew leapt backwards into Xephos as Spacker's eyes snapped open, staring blankly at them, bloodshot with terrible red iris' and dead black pupils.

"Wha...what are ye?!" Spacker slurred in his deep croaky voice, his mind foggy from sleep, staring at the two strangers. He leapt out of his bed and put a hand on the massive cleaver strapped to his belt.

"What's wrong with him!?" Honeydew yelled. "Is he a zombie?"

"I think he is a zombie." Xephos said, cringing at the way the zombie dwarf's insides swirled about when he moved.

"A zombie dwarf?!" Honeydew stared at Spacker.

"I'm not dead, I'm jus' sleepin'! Restin' me kidneys." the undead dwarf said. "And if ye' could actually talk to me, that'd be great." He stood up a little straighter, but still seemed slightly slumped. "My name's Spacker LeChuck. Now who the hell are you, what's goin' on out there, and why have ye' woken me up?"

"...Well..." Xephos spoke uncertainly. "I'm Xephos, and this is Honeydew-"

"Burn and salt him, Xephos!" Honeydew burst, backing past the rows of bunks towards the door.

"Shut it, sonny, or I'll 'ave ye." Spacker spat.

"Jock told us to come and find you." Xephos continued. "Grimjaw Slugface has attacked Barbeque Bay and has blown up on of the main support struts on the south-western side of the bay. He told us that you knew where the supplies were and how to fix it."

spacker, just looked at them in turn for a while, eyebrow raised.

"Follow me belowdecks." he gurgled, pushing past Honeydew and out the door to the main battery. "And if any of me kidneys fall out, let me know."

Xephos and Honeydew watched the small dwarf slump off towards a set of stairs leading down to the next floor below. There was another wound on his back, the same size and shape as the first, leaving his spine snapped in one place, bound together with fabric, yet still slipping around occasionally with a soft grinding. It was very likely the same accident that cause both wounds.

realising that Spacker wasn't going to wait for them, they set off after the zombie dwarf, keeping their eyes peeled for any kidneys.

They continued in silence down into the bowels of the great ship, once or twice taking the wrong path and having to double back.

"Me head ain't what it used to be." Spacker commented as he led them further along through a set of rooms.

"Yeah? That's not the only thing that ain't what it used to be." Honeydew said, giving a timid gasping laugh when Spacker shot him a paralyzing glance.

They walked through a few more rooms until they arrived at what was a huge room surely at the rear of the ship, where in the lantern light was what appeared to be a boat.

It was of large size, with a collapsable mast and what seemed to be a crane at the forecastle, The entire thing would've easily been able to float fifty men standing, and there was plenty of room when Spacker motioned for Honeydew and Xephos to join him in boarding it.

"What's this?" asked Honeydew, walking around the boat within the belly of an even greater ship as Spacker walked over to the wheel, standing on a box to reach it.

"It's a salvage vessel." Spacker growled. "We use it for fishin' out loot from sunken ships, but it'll do well for this purpose."

"Which is..?" Xephos asked as he leant against the the crane.

Spacker smiled slightly as he reached up and grabbed a pull-rope hanging from the ceiling. There was a clicking noise and a section of the front wall before the boat fell away, revealing a small chute into open water.

"Savin' this bay." Spacker reached higher and pulled another rope, sending the boat sliding down the chute, as he roared with laughter. Xephos and Honeydew barely had time ti hold onto something before they smashed into the water with a cascade of white froth, then the salvage vessel glided froward along the water calmly, while Spacker turned it sharp right, ordering Xephos and Honeydew to raise the collapsable mast and sail, while he steered the boat between Angus' galleon and Barbeque Bay, in the opposite direction of Grimjaw's great ship.

As they successfully raised the mast and sail Spacker steered them beneath the gangway that they'd just used to board Angus's ship. There was suddenly a commotion from above, and looking up the group saw that the boarding deck was jammed with pirates boarding the galleon.

"Well, look! Spacker's finally woken up, e'reybody!" one of them mocked from above.

"Fancy yourself a cap'n now, Spacky?" called another. Soon they were flooded with jeers as they approached the gangway. "Got yer' self a crew o' lan' lubbers too! Arhaha!"

"Ish Spacker dow' there, some'ere?" came Angus Eyeless' unmistakeable voice, and suddenly he was at the rail of the ship far above, looking blindly about.

"Aye, I'm here cap'n." Spacker called up."

"What ye doin' down there?" Angus asked. "I'sh not time fer swimmin' now."

The crew began to laugh at this, but were silenced by a gesture by Angus.

"I'm takin' the salvage boat to fix the beam that fell." Spacker yelled up as they sailed slowly past the gangway.

"Awrigh'" Angus called after. "Jus' don' get yer self kill't out there. We're gonna attack Grin-jaw in thish ship. We'll buy ye shome time."

"Thank ye, cap'n." Spacker yelled as they sailed clear of the gangway, where the crew continued to bustle aboard, sneering at Spacker, who ignored them.

Unable to tolerate the injustice any more, Honeydew walked to the rear of the boat, turned around, dropped his pants and mooned the crew.

"Dwarven Supremacy, bitches!" he yelled back as the pirates threw racist swears back.

When Honeydew pulled his trousers back up Spacker was laughing deeply.

"They deserved that!" he punched Honeydew in the arm as he walked by over to the mast.

"You shouldn't put up with that." Honeydew said to his smaller kin.

"Meh, they're just a bunch of racist wastes of decent life." Spacker said. "Can't handle a dwarf being on a boat. Especially on like me."

"What do you mean by that?" Xephos asked.

His statement was met with two looks that said "are you serious?".

"Oh...right." Xephos replied sheepishly.

"Angus seems to look out for you though." Honeydew turned back to Spacker at the wheel.

"Yeah," Spacker steered the boat around the corner of the bay, sounds of battle in the background. "He's the only reason that anyone doesn't kill me a second time, and is also the reason that anyone would touch me when I was on the slab trying to eat everyone's brains. So let's say I owe him one. Those arselickers only really give me any strife when they're in a group. They're all scared of me." Spacker smiled, but the kind of smile that could've just as much been sad as happy. "So Angus made me first mate to show em'."

"So..." Xephos said, stepping away from the crane and ducking under the boom of the mast. "What have you done for Angus that makes him look out for you?"

"You know his eyes?" Spacker said distractedly.

"Yes..." Xephos replied.

"Could've been a lot worse if not for me."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"What do you mean?"

"Here's what we're lookin' for." Spacker deflected the question, pointing to the side of the platform of Barbeque Bay, where a barge was tied up, carrying three huge thick logs, perfect sized for replacing the fallen one.

Spacker pulled the boat into the side of the platform, telling Honeydew to tie the barge to the back of the boat. After this, using the wind behind them the boat move quickly to the other corner of the bay, where Spacker turned again, headed for the fallen pillar directly ahead on the next turn.

"Right, now listen up." Spacker said, causing Xephos and Honeydew to tune towards him. "What's gonna happen is I'll lay anchor at the foot of the fallen pillar, and Honeydew, you get out and get some stout men to help you cut the stub of the old pillar off using the log saws in the barge. We could also use a good many to pull on the rope for the crane. It'd be quicker if we had a good few dwarves to help, but that's just unfortunate." He turned to Xephos. "Now, what you'll have to do is while I'm steering the crane is stand on top of it. At the very tip, to guide the pillar into place at the top and nail it in place. Bare in mind this won't be a permanent solution, so no need to make it pretty. We'll put up a good one when we've gotten rid of Grimjaw." He put his hands on his hips. "Any questions?"

"Yeah..." Xephos said uncertainly. "Do I have to be on top of the crane?"

Spacker looked at Xephos with head cocked.

"You some sort of weakling, lad?" he asked.

Xephos begrudgingly submitted and waited by the crane for Spacker to begin contorting the crane, while they pulled in next to the platform. Honeydew wasted no time in calling a group of men over as he dragged a log-saw out of the the barge. Two on either side of the huge toothed blade, he and the pirates made short work of cutting away the stump of the old pillar, even as battle raged around them.

Looking over to Grimjaw's ship, which had pulled away from the bay somewhat, a gaping hole left by an explosive bolt in it's side, Xephos saw Angus' ship, which was dwarfed by the larger ship, try to flank the opposing vessel.

"Splice the main-brace!" Jock's voice was heard over the cacophony of battle. "We cannot let the top platform fall!"

Seconds after, Honeydew and the pirates sawed totally through the stump of the pillar, kicking it into the ocean. Spacker then worked quickly, while they'd been cutting he'd hacked a dozen deep notches into one of the logs on the barge, where he now snaked the crane's noose about, securing the knots surely.

"Get up there, Xephos." he yelled, and after pulling a satchel filled with thick nails and a mallet over his shoulder, obediently Xephos climbed to the top of the crane's head, where he crouched low and hung on, holding tightly to the tiny wooden ledge.

"Honeydew!" Spacker yelled, running to the edge of the bay with a thick rope, which he handed to the taller dwarf. "Get those men and pull on this rope at my command, you're gonna really need to pull to get the log high enough. Also, get some others to nail it in place."

He turned to go when Honeydew stopped him.

"Ah...Spacker?" he said.

Spacker turned and found Honeydew holding out a small fleshy bean shaped object in his gloved hand. "Your kidney fell out."

Spacker thankfully took it, reaching back inside him and shoving it into place as Honeydew marshaled a group of burly pirates behind him on the rope, braced to heave at it like in a tug-of-war.

Spacker hobbled over to the base of the crane, where he stood before a bunch of levers jutting from the floor of the boat.

"Hope you're not afraid of heights." Spacker mumbled to Xephos, not looking up as he adjusted the levers and cranks.

"We don't have a very good relationship, to be honest." Xephos admitted.

"Well in that case," Spacker said, stepping away from the crane, pulling the head of it where Xephos sat over the log. "...it sucks to be you."

The dwarf raised his arm and let it fall, yelling: _"PULL!"_

The entire boat gave a lurch, and the men on the platform tugged mightily, and slowly, the great log rose from the barge as the crane rose. Xephos could feel the boat swaying as it labored under the weight, and gave a start when the log was partially upright and slipped out of the barge and into the water, rocking the vessel. Still Honeydew led the men against the foe, pulling back mightily, allowing the log to ascend.

Spacker, on the barge, began to pull on levers, adjusting the crane, rotating it back towards where it would become the new pillar, whilst Xephos clung desperately to the tip.

The crane was nearing the peak of it's reach, at which the log would be at the correct point to insert it into the gap, when a ballista bolt slammed into one of the men pulling the rope, throwing him across the platform. Those who didn't release the rope certainly eased their grip, and suddenly the crane dipped, and Xephos with the log dropped back towards the sea. Honeydew and few other quick thinkers only just stopped it before the sea enveloped the support strut, but the jolt caused Xephos to lose his balance, and he only barely managed to grab the edge before he was thrown into the ocean, where the weight of his armor would likely drown him. He felt the crane and log begin to rise once more as Honeydew recalled the men to the cause, and pulled himself back onto the head, straddling the crane. But who or whatever had fired the bolt that killed the man seconds ago had clearly noticed the plot to repair the bay despite the distraction from Angus and his crew, and now a volley of bolts flew their way. A few men balked, dropping the line and running for cover, some still getting hit even so, but the stout men stayed true, and the crane only jerked slightly.

Jock Fireblast, a man who did not go without noticing things, quickly yelled across Barbeque Bay, ordering men to fend off Grimjaw while his ballistae reloaded, and others to bring cover for the men tugging the rope. Soon there were pirates with large shields, barrels or doors kneeling in front of the coverless men tugging the line, which was now bolstered by the ever increasing flow of pirates that came to replace those who fell to the bolts of Grimjaw.

Not too long after the log became level with the bay, and working quickly Spacker maneuvered the new support towards the opening. The men on the platform of Barbeque Bay hurriedly ushered the bottom into place and set to frantically nailing it in with thick stakes. As Spacker guided the tip inward, Xephos whacked away the few fragments of the old strut that survived the explosion. As it reached the appropriate place Xephos signaled Spacker to stop. The crane ceased Movement, and as Xephos was about to begin nailing it in, a bolt from on of Grimjaw's ballistae flew past the rope, it's bladed tip slicing through half of the of the rope.

Xephos could feel the crane dipping, and quickly stood up to whack in one of the stakes, just holding it barely stable as the crane continued to dip. Xephos stepped off the crane's head and onto the notches cut by Spacker for the noose of the crane, as it dipped further and beyond reach of the ceiling. Xephos, clinging to the log, nearly fifty yards over the water began to hammer frantically, nailing the log to the ceiling as fast as he could manage. Xephos could soon feel the crane's rope snapping and the full weight of the crane began pulling away from the log, straining the nails. Xephos began to hurry his pace, egged on by cheers from below. As he nailed in the tenth stake while clinging dangerously to the strut a huge bolt slammed into the wood only a foot from him.

"Shit!" he swore as another zoomed past. He waited for another until he was convinced that the ballistae were reloading, and shimmied to the side that he was being fired upon by, using the tick bolt as a hand hold while he nailed in some of the last stakes.

"That should be it!" he yelled down to Spacker who grinned back. A cheer went up among the pirates. Xephos was just wondering how he was going to get down when he heard the sound of several ballistae firing simultaneously. Not allowing himself thought, Xephos threw himself from the support as a dozen bolts slammed into it, he fell through the smokey air towards the harsh sea in his heavy steel armor.

"Someone help!" He yelled before splashing down, the water hitting him like a kick in the chest. Yet as he began to sink, Xephos felt something tugging at his back, and soon the lasso that had snared him pulled him to the surface. He allowed the rope to pull him back to the bay as he gulped for air after being winded by the water. There were ragged cheers as Honeydew and Spacker puller him from the water into a throng of pirates who all but carried them across the deck.

"That's a done deal!" Spacker yelled, forcing himself over to the two. "Well done, ye two!"

"Thanks!" Honeydew said.

"Who was it that got me with the lasso?" Xephos asked. "If it weren't for them I would've drowned!"

"It were Jack who did that!" Spacker turned and pointed to a tall fair-haired youth wearing yellow tartan with a wide brimmed hat and holding the rope that saved Xephos in one hand, and a half eaten apple in the other. Jack nodded at them and bit into the apple. "Now ain't the time fer' an apple, Jack!" Spacker jeered.

"Where are they taking us?" Honeydew asked.

"Probably to-"

"What's all this!" came the roar of Jock Fireblast. The crowd of pirates stopped and split for the tall captain. "The fight ain't over until Grimjaw's sleepin' with the fishes! Get back to your posts! And ye can man the south-western ballistae on the upper platform now. _Get to it!"_

The crowd dispersed as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only Spacker, Honeydew and Xephos with Jock.

"Aharr!" he laughed briefly. "The upper platform stands! Ye' deckhands did good, even the deadling, too." Spacker stared defiantly at Jock. "Now ye' can take out Grimjaw!"

"But why us?" Honeydew spoke up.

"Burn down his ship!" Jock ordered. "Don't you answer me back dwarf!"

"Ay aye, Cap'n!" At the mention of fire Honeydew's discrepancies vanished and he, turned immediately and ran over to where he and Xephos had docked their boats, followed by Xephos and Spacker.

"Oh gods," Xephos sighed as Honeydew approached on of the boats.

"I did ask Jock why, but now I'm thinking; "Okay, I can do that."." Honeydew laughed. "I'm in my element here."

"Uh...Honeydew?" Xephos pointed. there was only one boat, where the other was a ballista bolt was sunk into the wood, where the it likely would've struck after rupturing a hole in the boat, sinking it.

Honeydew looked at the other boat, occasionally thumbing his flint and steel pouches.

"Fuck it, I never trusted you with a boat anyways." Honeydew didn't wait for a response before he jumped into the boat and began paddling away from the bay.

"Wait!" Xephos called out to him over the battle still raging, but Honeydew was already melting away into the darkness with swift oar strokes. "He's not listening." Xephos said to Spacker LeChuck.

"Stay out of sight near the shore until ye're close enough to light the ship up!" Spacker bellowed into the black night.

"What do we do now then?" Xephos asked.

"We wait." Spacker turned and walked back along the wharf towards the main platform. "Oh,and we fight."

After several minutes of running bolts to a ballista Spacker was firing on the lower platform, Xephos grew worried. Honeydew shouldn't have taken this long, but as he watched the dark night around the even darker outline of Grimjaw's ship with all the lights doused, there came a small tongue of sparks at the fore of the ship, it caught, and a strong flame grew despite the wet wood of the ship, and then another shower of sparks, the bryne-steel fire igniting the wood quickly and spreading even faster, within seconds, the front of the ship was engulfed, and high pitched animalistic shrieks were heard from aboard. But by far the most unsettling sound was a nefarious laugh, gradually growing louder and apparently coming from the figure in the row boat paddling directly back towards the bay, backdrop of a huge flaming ship behind him as Honeydew approached the bay.

"Your time is nigh, Grimjaw!" the huge voice of Jock bellowed through a speaking trumpet towards the ship as the pirates became madly dancing at the sight of their enemy defeated.

"_...my ship...!"_ came a yell from Grimjaw Slugface as the fire spread up to the rear house.

"Oh my goodness me..." Xephos said flatly.

"That fire mad dwarf's got bryne-steel ain't he?" Spacker said in awe. "I never thought that I'd see one of those beauties burn again. He'd do well to let no one know about it, there'd be a bigger battle than this one for a tinder of pure bryne-steel! Shit! Look at it go!" Spacker's red eyes reflected the flames with a hellish intensity.

"It's beautiful! It's beautiful!" Honeydew suddenly pulled himself over the edge of the platform at their feet. He looked far too pleased with himself.

"_...aaaAAAAHHHHHHRRRrrr..."_ Grimjaw's scream rose over the water as the vessel was fully engulfed in a glorious red dance of flame conjuring into a floating funeral pyre, slowly delving down into the ocean, it's captain and bestial crew with it.

"Your boat be burnin'! And your maps be going with it too!" Jock yelled over the trumpet while all of Barbeque Bay danced in the firelight.

"What?!" Xephos turned to Jock hurridly, and then back to Grimjaw's ship.

"Maps!?" Honeydew shot to his feet. "What!?" he yelled, his voice growing high. "Oh gods Xephos! Have we fucked it all up!?

_Author's Notes:_

_Well, Exams are over, so I can more regularly update, but even so it took me longer to get thi out than I would've liked. I hope you're all faring well and I am sorry for the delay. Also, if me and so buddies were to do some Let's Play's on Youtube, would any of you be interested?_

_Remember to check out our Forum Page for links and updates:_

_**sorry, Yogiverse is spazzing for me so I can't find my page, check the end of other chapters**_

_And follow on Twitter for latest updates:_

_ /OJvanderBeek_

_Thanks for stopping by. Good day._


	20. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter20

Chapter 20: The Dread Pirate Norris.

"We should check his ship for the map before it all burns!" Xepho suggested, he and honeydew stared across the dark harbor at Grimjaw Slugface's huge ship, now becoming fast a floating funeral pyre for him, his crew,and the map of Karpath, taking their quest with it.

"We've got to do something!" Honeydew stepped to the edge of the huge wooden platform of Barbeque Bay and dangled himself over the edge, fumbling blindly over the dark water for the small boat he'd left moments before, finding it with his foot and carefully dropping into it picked up the paddle and told Xephos to get in behind him.

His friend almost jumped straight in after him, and in a moment Honeydew was paddling away from the bay, ;eaving Spacker LeChuck looking bewildered on the platform.

"Dwarf, yer s'posed to pillage_ before_ ye burn!" he yelled after them as Homeydew desperately powered towards the boat as Xephos kneeled behind him, bow drawn incase anyone aboard the ship tried to aprehend them.

"Do you think Grimjaw has the map fragment on his person?" Xephos asked as they drew near.

"I don't know, maybe. Aha!" Honeydew pulled in the boat at the rear of the ship where the flames where yet to reach, a hole had also been blown in the side by an explosive crossbow bolt, allowing entry. Honeydew got out of the boat first, leading the way into the smoke filled ship's belly, where somewhere beyond the smoke, pained animalistic grunts filled the room.

"We should be careful," Xephos coughed, entering after Honeydew and pushing past him into the smoke. "Anyone still alive on the ship will know that this is the way away from the flames is towards the rear-"

Xephos was suddenly pushed aside by a man, screaming as he ran for the water, his clothes and beard alight. He wailed as he ran for the gap and leapt for the water faster than Honeydew could grab him. Grimjaw Slugface fell with a splash into the cold dark ocean as Xephos pulled himself to his feet.

"Careful," he cautioned. "Grimjaw's still alive and kicking."

As he spoke, a gnarled hand reached out of the water and a ragged yet enraged Grimjaw pulled himself from the water, face and hair burnt, eyes maddened.

"Ye..." he spat pointing at Honeydew as he crawled back through the hole into his ship. "Ye're the one who be burnin' my ship...and now ye here for th' spoils? Looters are ye? Well not here, not on my fucking ship!" Grimjaw suddenly drew his thick cutlass and leapt forwards at Honeydew, who barely had time to dive away from the curved blade. Xephos drew his own sword, the blue glow illuminating the cavernous ship. Leaping forwards he stabbed at Grimjaw, who parried and swung at him. Honeydew was now on his feet and drew his weapon, swinging wildly at Grimjaw, who ducked below it and stepped back away from them.

"Two on one...no fair." he grimmaced, then called out loudly in an undecipherable tongue. Honeydew and Xephos were dimly aware of many loud footfalls hurrying their way acompanied by pig-like squeals. Xephos barely had time to parry Grimjaw as an inhuman face loomed out of the smoke and gave a bestial screech. The undead pig-man made a hack at Xephos with a crude sword fashioned from copper, Xephos quickly pushed the sword of Grimjaw away and sidestepped the blow of the grotesque pig-man, it's head of a wild boar, body resembling a human but covered in thick hair, while it's two legs ended in trotters and thick arms with beefy hands. Xephos briefly had time to acknowledge that the entire thing was rotting it some half dead zombie state, before he spun away from another strike and sliced in across it's thick neck.

The whole ship then creaked and with a trail of sparks a portion of the upper floor fell away, causing much smoke to be sucked away to the upper floor, yet also revealing Grimjaw's crew of undead pig-men, armed to the tusks and running to their captain's aid.

"Oh shit!" Honeydew swore, blocking and striking at Grimjaw, missing.

Xephos, seeing what was needed of him, ran forwards to meet the tide of pig-men as Honeydew dueled with Grimjaw. He leapt into one, knocking it to the floor, ducked under another's slice and stabbed it through the head, withdrawing his sword and spinning, cutting open another's gut, spilling entrails across the floor.

Mean while, Honeydew dueled on with Grimjaw, who attempted to retreat up to the next floor via a flight of stairs. Honeydew stabbed forwards, only to be deflected and bring his sword about to parry a thrust at his belly. Pressing onwards Honeydew forced Grimjaw to the next floor, they danced in a routine of blades across the creaking floorboards, surrounded by smoke and fire as Xephos kept off an army of zombie pig-men below. Honeydew leapt back as a support for the floor above fell away from the wall, crashing between him and Grimjaw, smashing through the floorboards renting a thick gap between them, crushing a fair few pig-men for Xephos too.

The floorboards swayed for a while, but not allowing Honeydew any time to recover Grimjaw leapt over the void to the dwarf, who madly blocked and parried his blows. Grimjaw was a master swordsman, his cutlass flying about in a deadly graceful manner, now pushing Honeydew towards the back to the ship where the fire was following. Honeydew stepped back away from Grimjaw's sword, grabbing a barrel from against the closest wall and throwing it between them. Grimjaw leapt back from it, and it rolled into the fire. Grimjaw fell upon Honeydew again, raining down his steel upon Honeydew's, the sounds of metal on metal and the screams of pig-men filled the air. Grimjaw pressed close to Honeydew to strike, and the two locked swords briefly, wherein both noticed a faint hissing noise coming from the barrel Honeydew had thrown into the fire. Next second the powder barrel erupted, causing a huge hole next to the one that had been caused by the deck falling away moments before. A crack formed around the rear of the ship, and in the moment of confusion Honeydew pushed Grimjaw away and ran for the crack as the rear of Grimjaw's ship began to fall away from the rest. Grimjaw ran after, but as the floor angled he slipped and he fell to the floor, sliding to the back wall with a thud. He tried to stand, but as he did a huge heavy footlocker slid down the deck and into his legs, breaking both and pinning him as the ship fell apart. Honeydew reached the edge of the growing abyss, he leapt, and as the back of Grimjaw's once magnificent vessel smashed into the ocean. He fell through the air and landed on what was left of the bottom floor, on top of a pig-man beside Xephos, who was watching the ship fall away, sinking into the waters, Grimjaw, trapped, with it.

"Grimjaw's taking a cool off." Honeydew panted, dispatching a pig-man, while another of the ship's struts fell off.

"Did you find the map?" asked Xephos, killing another of Grimjaw's bestial crew.

"No." Honeydew said, when further down the length of the ship, the walls and floors began to finally give into the fire, falling inwards, the destruction slowly making it's way towards them. "We should go. NOW!" Honeydew yelled stepping back, only to notice Xephos was already running for the boat, still nestled in the gap at the side of the ship. Xephos leapt in and drew his bow, turning as fast as he was able as Honeydew followed after him, leaping hard as he could into the boat, pushing off from the boat. A pig-man appeared at the door as they drifted away, and the brute ended up with an arrow in it's chest. Xephos knocked another into his bow as more appeared at the exit, spilling away from the ship as it collapsed into the sea.

Honeydew madly began paddling back towards Barbeque Bay and the raucous pirates while Xephos knelt in front of him, aiming past him into the writhing horde of zombie pig-men, shooting off a few, yet for every one that fell another took it's place.

"We're out by the skin of out teeth." Honeydew panted.

"Yeah, but we've still got a hell of a lot of pig-men behind us!" Xephos shot another.

"Don't bring 'em over here!" Jock yelled to them as they approached the bay, followed by a small army of swimming undead chimeras.

"What!" Xephos turned around and looked at Jock and his eunterauge of pirates.

There was a sudden mass of squeals for the pigs behind Honeydew and as they looked he and Xephos saw their bodies were now peppered with arrows, crossbow bolts and even throwing knives, leaving only a few alive.

Looking back, Xephos saw the pirates on the platform reloading, and without any coordination massacred the remaining pig-men. When they reached the platform, Xephos and Honeydew were pulled out of their boat and carried on the shoulders of many pirates all laughing merrily to the main clearing where Grimjaw, Angus and Jock had argued earlier that evening. Standing there was Jock, looking as impartial as ever, and Spacker, slightly off to the side, an expression of amusement and puzzlement on his dead face.

The throng of pirates dropped the two in the midst of Jock, forming a tight circle around them, all yelling their approval, apparently at their valiant slaying of Grimjaw Slugface.

"Huzzah!" yelled Jock, once. The pirates, merchants, whores, and everyone else who'd come out once the fighting had ended all followed his example, yelling a single huzzah that could've been heard from Icaria.

"Grog all round!" Jock finished, which was met with even more approval.

"But... the map fragment..." Honeydew said lowly, and only Xephos heard.

"I think if it was in the ship it's all burnt up by now." Xephos looked about at the celebrating pirates, half of whom had already run off to the tavern. "Spacker did say that we should've plundered before we burned. We may well be in trouble."

"Should we ask him?" Honeydew ask nervously, glancing at Jock.

"Now," Jock yelled over the noise as the ale began to flow. "You, deckhands." he looked at Xephos and Honeydew, and the chaos settled. "You were a good set of hands to have aboard,"

"Here here!" yelled a faint voice, to a roar of approval from the pirates.

Jock once more silenced them.

"Any time you be needing a favor, just be askin' it." he said, to a gathered gasp from the crowd, who clearly were shocked by the reward.

"Well..." Xephos began nervously. "Do you know about a piece of an evil map?" he asked.

"A map fragment?" Jock replied, raising their hopes. But then he began to laugh, followed by the rest of the bay. "You'll be lucky if you don't trip over one around here!" Jock said.

"Well that's helpful," said Honeydew sarcastically, growing impatient.

Jock looked at him, somewhat amused by the insolent dwarf.

"Show me the piece you have already." he commanded.

"Okay..." Honeydew took off his pack and withdrew the piece of crumpled paper, holding it out. "Here we go..."

"Let's see..." Jock said.

The tension in the air was high, every pirate trying to peer at the map as Jock took it. The big man looked amused for a moment as he studied the map, but then, horror dawned on his features. Jock yelled out in fright and dropped the map fragment to the floor. The pirates all stepped back warily, hushed conversation snaking about them.

"Something wrong?" Honeydew asked. "Did you get a paper-cut or something?"

"That-that be tainted!" Jock pointed a shaking hand at the sad little shred of paper. "It carries the black spot!" he looked up at Xephos and Honeydew as he said this, anger growing in his voice.

There were shouts of dismay from the pirates as they tried to back away, some shouting insults at the two that they'd been praising seconds before.

"Black spot!?" Xephos asked, bending and retaking the map, causing the pirates to gasp. He looked at the map but couldn't see any spot save a few drops of stray ink near the abstract lines. "There's no damned spot! It's just an ink blotch, that's all.

"I would suspect Grimjaw Slugface would have the next piece..." Jock barked. "But his ship be burning in Davey's Locker, yet rumors are abound of his treasure hold!"

At the mention of treasure the pirates became less aggressive and more excited, now eyeing the map as though weighing the chances of a curse against a bounty of gold.

"Now we're talking!" Honeydew yelled. "Treasure, Xephos! Everyone likes treasure!" some of the pirates let out a ragged cheer of approval, while others remained silent, others turning and leaving. "Where is this treasure hold?" Honeydew continued.

"Finding it won't be easy." Jock said, calmer. "For someone else is already on it's trail!"

The pirates began to creep closer to their leader in the torchlight, so quiet they were that the crackling of Grimjaw's ship's last pieces burnt slowly before sinking as the first fingers of light brushed the horizon.

"The Dread Pirate: Norris." Jock spat.

The effect on the gathering of pirates was electric. There was a sharp intake of breath, followed by many shouts, grumbles and curses as the men reacted to the name.

"The "Dread Pirate: _Norris"_?" Honeydew raised an eyebrow.

"That's a, err, terrifying name..." Xephos spoke up.

Jock suddenly raised a hand, and once more silence fell.

"Come with me." he said brusquely to Xephos and Honeydew, and walked for the wharf adjasoned to where Xephos and Honeydew had docked their boats, the crowd parting for them. "The rest of you stay put." he yelled back, stopping the pirates from following. "I'll be back by mid morning, I want this place looking shipshape by then or you'll be looking for work in another port." on this note the pirates dispersed and Jock led the two down the wharf where several of the small boats where docked. Wordlessly Jock settled into the nearest, and pushed off without waiting for Xephos or Honeydew. The two quickly boarded their own boats and pushed off after the big man, his powerful strokes pushing his boat through the water swiftly.

"Where is he going?" Honeydew asked, paddle surging through the water in a mid to keep up with Jock.

It took a while, as Jock was visibly very skilled in a boat, he followed the coast from a distance, and as the sun rose behind them they passed a small peninsular, Barbeque bay tiny behind them as Jock paddled out into the harbor. After a few seconds of further silence, Honeydew ventured to ask more about this Dread Pirate.

"Terrible woman, treasure hunter. Thief! Vagabond!" Jock barked, pressing on, paddling off across the harbor to where the coast curled around in front of them in the far distance, giving way to the harbor mouth.

"She'd know for sure about Grimjaw's Treasure...sailed up yonder," Jock stopped paddling and let his boat drift to a halt as the sun finally rose fully above the hills to the east. The rays lit up the harbor, and across near the mouth the could barely make out a tiny ship, single masted, with black sails docked by the hilly coast opposite. "There be her ship." Jock pointed, digging his paddle back into the water and back paddling, turning himself back towards Barbeque Bay, a speck in the distance. "Now I must return to help repair the Bay! Return if you survive and we will see about this map..."

And with that, Jock began to paddle off through the bay towards the platform, leaving Xephos and Honeydew bobbing in the harbor all alone.

"So that's the ship of the terrible woman." Honeydew began to paddle towards the ship far off on the coast. "The _vagabond."_

"Dread Pirate Norris..." Xephos said thoughtfully as he followed.

"So..." Honeydew said after a while, the small ship slightly bigger. "She's a lady then?"

"Yeah..?" Xephos looked at Honeydew suspiciously.

"Oh..." The dwarf mumbled mischieveiously. "It's been a while. It's been a while Xephos, I think that it's time that I moved on from Granny Bacon."

"Oh gods, you don't even know what she looks like, yet!"

"I'm being optimistic!"

Xephos paddled with increasing trepidation towards the ship, following Honeydew. They eventually came close enough to make out detail on the ship, It was tiny compared to the other ships in the bay, with only a small house at the rear and by the looks of it barely enough room below to house enough supplies and room for maybe ten people at the very most. They approached closer to the ship, when at about forty yards a voice called out.

"Stay away from the Black Pimple, ye land-lubbing scum!" called a high, soft voice, yet the message was delivered with a bitter savagery.

The two back paddled and looked up to atop the rear house on the Black Pimple, and there stood a woman. Perfectly illuminated by the sun before her, the Dread Pirate Norris glared down at the two intruders. Her long, shining black hair framed her flawless face, it's flowing ends curling into rings. Her hair and white puffy blouse beneath a bodice black as her hair caught in the breeze, tugging at her as she watched. But in her slender hands she held a katana, the long thin blade, gradually curving like the moon, snaring the morning light which glared back at Xephos and Honeydew.

They stared up at this strange and beautiful woman, who despite her strangeness held something familiar about her. Norris threatened them again, lowering her katana below the ship's railing, subsiding the glare, and revealing her face, with deep haunted indigo eyes and sharp features. It was there that Honeydew recognised who this was. Her face was like his, but hers was younger, and even something about the way she stood was remenisent of the way he'd stood while fighting on The Wall with Honeydew and Xephos. But ultimately, it was her eyes. She had the same eyes, of a purple so dark that it resembled thunderhead clouds pigmentation, but they were the same eyes as Knight Peculier's.

Honeydew's mind raced as he tried to put a name to this pretty face, and he remembered when they found Peculier atop the watchtower, wounded by arrow fire. As Honeydew held him, Knight Peculier had whispered to Honeydew something that he first thought was the product of a fitful sleep, but now he saw it was a name, maybe even her name.

"Isabel?" Honeydew called up cautiously. "Isabel Peculier?"

Xephos made a loud confused noise at this statement, but then looking at the lady pirate saw the similarities.

Honeydew watched like a hawk, and saw as she heard his words, a tiniest flicker of shock across Isbel's face. That was all the proof that he needed.

"Who? I am the Dread Pirate Norris!" she snapped back at them. "And I'll slit ye gizzards open!"

Honeydew now just smiled nonchalantly back, satisfied. "Never before have I laid eyes on such beauty!"

"_This_ is the Dread Pirate Norris?" Xephos said, severly shocked.

"Scourge of the seas!" Isabel reassured, ignoring Honeydew.

"We know of a knight called Peculier!" Xephos called up.

And there it was again, a flash of shock across her fine features.

"Do you know him?" Xephos asked. "We are on a quest for him. To find a map."

"I-I don't know what ye be talkin' about!" Isabel suddenly leaned closer, hissing down.

"Shh!" she whispered. "Don't mention that name out here! Tis a bad omen."

"Oh please do not hurt us oh Dread Pirate: Norris." Honeydew laughed. "Oh? he said, hitting realisation. "Oh gods she's incognito, isn't she? I don't think anyone's supposed to know who she is."

"My thoughts exactly." Xephos said back.

"Dread Pirate must be like a title."

"Well," Isabel stood up and sheathed her oriental blade and crossing her arms. "You two idiots are obviously not my enemy." she gestured for them to come around to the other side of the ship. "Come aboard."

The two paddled their boats around the rear of the ship to a cove that the Black Pimple hid from view, likely due to it running into a tiny headland, grounding it where it stood.

"Oh gods yeah, it looks like she's run aground or something. Typical woman driver, am I right?" Honeydew jeered as they pulled into the beach, stepping into the shallows and out of their boats.

"Careful," Xephos warned. "You might get a slap for that if she hears you."

"So you're also looking for Grimjaw's treasure?" Isabel said after they introduced themselves and crossed onto her ship where it's forecastle met the headland.

"Not the treasure really," Honeydew said, flexing, yet trying to seem like he wasn't. "Just one piece of old paper."

"A map." Xephos stepped in, clarifying. He then looked about the ship. "What happened here?"

"We can talk later," Isabel evaded. "But my first mate has gone missing. Follow me. I have something I need you to do." She pushed past the two and back across to the head, walking down it to the coast, Xephos and Honeydew had no choice but to follow.

"Do you think that she's single, Xephos?" Honeydew asked, making no move to pass Isabel as he stared at her behind in it's tight breeches. "Do you think that she'd be interested in a lonely rejected dwarf? I mean she's pretty good looking."

"You'd have to ask her yourself, I think." Xephos advised, rolling hie eyes.

"You will be needing these." Isabel said as they passed the beached boats. Honeydew and Xephos pushed them into the water and waded parralel to the shore, following Isabel as she headed for another small rocky headland.

"Alright, I'm going to ask her out, Xephos." Honeydew finally said after watching Knight Peculier's unknown relative for a while longer

"Hey, Isabel?" he called out.

She turned to look at him, expression dubious. "What's wrong?"

"Just wanted to know if you're seeing anyone at the moment." Honeydew said in a forced relaxed tone.

Isabel stopped suddenly, looking at Honeydew in the corner of her eye so that he wouldn't see her blushing. She was trying to uphold a reputation.

"Why...no." she stated matter-of-factly, resuming her pace towards the bare, rock covered headland.

"Don't you think that we should learn more about here before you flirt with her?" Xephos scolded. "Like how she's related to Knight Peculier."

Honeydew looked at him, annoyed. "I think that she's of age, if that's your concern." he turned back towards Isabel.

"Do you maybe want to go for a beer sometime?" he asked Isabel as she led them to the base of the headland, wading through the water near the rocks, leading them around to the front.

"Maybe later." she replied flirtatiously, turning and flashing Honeydew a wink.

"Oh yeah," Honeydew whispered to Xephos. "Still got it! I still got it!"

Isabel then led them around to the front of the rocky head, small wind thrown waves lapping against the side.

"Here's the place." Isabel said as Xephos and Honeydew led their boats around to where she stood at the mouth of an ancient tunnel through the rock, the water running into it and sun reflecting off it into a latticework of light on the ceiling, allowing only those with a boat to enter. At the mouth's roof an old rusted portcullis hung from a hole in the roof as well as a faded sign.

"Now go," Isabel instructed. "Go through the waterway. "I'll fix the Pimple and have a grog ready for you when you return. My mate was on Scumbucket Island, last I heard."

Honeydew, such was his hubris that he nearly jumped straight in his boat and paddle down the tunnel to impress Isabel.

"Hold on!" Xephos called out, pulling his boat back. "Did you even bother to read the sign?" he asked. _"Danger, you will die if you sail down here,"_ he read, facing Honeydew. "You were just going to sail down there weren't you? I'm not so sure anymore"

"Oh gods," Honeydew looked up at the sign, and back at the long dark tunnel where the only light came from a unknown source where the tunnel turned sharply left and continued. "I was just going to go down there. Are you sure that this is safe?" Honeydew asked Isabel.

"Not scared are ye?" she responded.

"Not that I'm scared or anything." Honeydew added in much the same second.

"Not a big strong dwarf like you." Isabel taunted cheekily.

"Oh come on, Xephos," Honeydew picked up his paddle. "Let's sail down this horrible dark scary tunnel for this lovely sexy lady."

Isabel blushed again and Xephos quickly boarded his boat and pushed past Honeydew, surrupticiously paddling down the waterway.

"I'll be waiting for ye!" Isabel called down after them.

"I mean what's the worst that could happen, really?" Honeydew asked,once they were well into the tunnel.

"Well," Xephos began. "The ceiling could fall out, or we go down a whirlpool and there's a terrible kraken that we have to fight-"

"Oh come on, Xephos, let's get this over and done with." Honeydew lightly rammed Xephos' boat with his own, speeding him forth. "I've got a hot date after this."

They now approached the bend in the waterway, a bright light source beaming out from around it. Xephos cautiously rounded the corner, but to his surprise the light came from the tunnel exit, where sunlight poured through, reflecting off the water and onto the walls in a spider web of lightness.

"Oh?" Xephos paddled ahead, followed by Honeydew. "Okay, there's no peril or danger of any description. There's just..." Xephos pushed through the culvert and out into what seemed to be a large lagoon, islands scattered here and there in the clear water. "It's just a lagoon by the looks." Xephos looked about for any direction as Honeydew followed him out of the tunnel, and saw nearby a barrel floating in the ocean. Drawing close to it they saw that it was in fact an ancient buoy, a sign on top of it, with directions on it to Scumbucket Island. An arrow painted on years ago, now flaked and peeling pointed for them to travel right, apparently between one of the larger islands in the lagoon and a pillar of rock.

As they paddled quickly over to it, something began to take form from behind the island, a tiny mound of earth and sand in the water, with what looked like a parasol the only thing adorning it.

"I think that there's something here," Xephos called back to Honeydew. "There's an island with a parasol between these two islands here."

"It's like a Tiki Bar, or something..." Honeydew observed as they passed between the larger island and the rock pillar, bringing themselves closer to the ironically named Scumbucket Island. "This is actually quite nice." Honeydew said as he pulled up first, getting out onto the sandy island and looking around. Apart from the large tattered parasol that he stood beneath there was a worn deck chair amongst other things. "I just don't understand where we're supposed to go-"

"_Behind you!"_ Xephos suddenly yelled from his boat.

Honeydew turned and saw that only inches from him was a creeper already hissing. As it neared the end of it's countdown the dwarf leapt off of the island and into the water seconds before it exploded. Honeydew surfaced to find his boat broken. Along with most of the things of the island.

"Oh crikey, are you okay?" Xephos asked as he pulled in, helping his friend out of the water.

"I think whoever island this belongs to, they're not going to be pleased. It looked really cozy, and now it's ruined." Honeydew said, looking at the splinters that were all that remained of the boat, parasol, and deckchair, as well as a large hole in the sand that now filled with water. The only thing that seemed to remain was a slate slab. Honeydew walked over to the large slab, half buried in debris and sand, yet it seemed to be a shaft exit, as down through the center there was a hole, large enough for someone to climb through.

"Oh, I found a hole here." he called over to Xephos, who jogged over to his friend.

"Okay..." Xephos peered in. The hole was a sheer drop for a few yards, as though t ensure that no-one could get out conventionally once they were in. It seemed also to open out into a large room at the bottom, where a faint light glowed from within. "Could this be the long lost entrance to Grimjaw's treasure hold?"

"Only one way to find out." Honeydew said as he lowered himself as far as he could into the stony hole, and dropped himself, sustaining a little ground shock in doing so. Xephos followed after his inquisitive friend, dropping down into a small room.

"What is this?" he asked looking about. The room was hardly a treasure hold, there were a few coins scattered on the ground, but it seemed as though the place had already been raided dozens of times over.

"Oh gods damn it! Someone's already been here and made off with the treasure, and the map by the looks too!" Honeydew looked around the room.

"Dammit." Xephos swore as Honeyde turned around to look around the back of the room. "But where is Isabela's first-mate, she said that he'd be here."

"Uhh...Xephos?" Honeydew said. "I think I've found him."

Xephos turned and found that this side of the vault opened into a short wide hallway with no exit, where there were only two things: a tiny trapdoor near where the hall began, and at the end of it, standing hunched and still in the dim light, was a man.

Or at least he looked like a man as Honeydew's keen dwarven eyes adjusted in an instant to the dark, he saw that this man was covered in metal, like a suit of skin tight armor it covered every inch of his body. Yet over this steel skin the metal man wore a red and white shirt and dark blue trousers, like someone had dressed him. And still the metal man stared at the wall. Totally motionless.

"Wait..." Xephos said. "He looks like that metal man from the magic book at Verigan's Hold, except he's not all covered in rust..."

"Holy shitting cows, Xephos, do you know what that is?" Honeydew asked in a low voice.

"What?"

"That," Honeydew said. "Is a Warforged. Probably one of the last. They were an extremely powerful sentient race of machines, no-one knows who built them, not even we dwarves could even fathom their mechanics. but they were only good at two things: killing, and drinking contests. Those guys sure can hold their liquor."

"What is he doing?" Xephos asked, stepping closer.

The Warforged stared at the wall.

Xephos took another step closer and saw what it faced. On the wall there was a single tiny stone button, and for some reason the Warforged just stared at it, as though it wasn't even alive.

"He's staring at a button." Xephos called back to Honeydew. "And..." he leaned closer, examining the Warforged's face. "He's wearing an eyepatch. Looks like something nasty happened to his eye."

"Well I think that we're going to have to figure out how to turn him on somehow." Honeydew remarked as Xephos came back over to him.

The suddenly, the metal man was no longer staring at the wall.

With a whirring sound the Pirate Tinman turned to face them, metal feet clanking on the floor. With more mechanical sounds the Tinman's eye lit up a bright green, an arcane mist seeping from it, and from beneath his patched left eye the light was duller, a crack trailed from one side of his metal brow ridge to where his nose would've been, the crack emitted the same green light underneath it. From a thing slit at his mouth there was a cyan blue light, mist of it's likeness billowing from it like a dragon's mouth.

"Uhh... I guess that worked." Honeydew stammered.

. . .

_-He's staring at a button. And... He's wearing an eyepatch. Looks like something nasty happened to his eye._

_-Well I think that we're going to have to figure out how to turn him on somehow._

. . .

-ABNORMAL SOUNDS DETECTED.

-INITIATING EMERGENCY START-UP SEQUENCE.

-BOOTING SYSTEM MEMORY.

-POWERING UP MAIN COMPONENTS.

-STABILIZING VGA FEED.

-SYSTEM PRE-CHECK:

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY - OK

HARD DRIVE - OK

OUTBOARD SOUND - ERROR

INBOARD SOUND - OK

VIDEO GRAPHICS ARRAY - OK

HOSTILITY : PERMITTED

ACTIVATING . . .

_Author's Notes: Sorry that this one was a while coming, a family wedding had me wrapped up on the other side of the country for a bit, and preparations for it got me preoccupied. But here Is a new chapter, one that I know a few of you have been looking forward to. Enjoy!_

_Make sure to follow me on Twitter for regular updates:_

_ /OJvanderBeek_

_And the Forum Page for links to all pages:_

_ . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread-(o-j-van-der-beek)_


	21. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter21

Chapter 21: Grimjaw's Trial.

The Pirate Tinman stared at them, cast metal face unmoving as the illumination hidden behind his face cast erie coloured light through the stone hallway, blue and green smoke rising from his mouth and one eye, the other hidden behind an eyepatch.

"Um...Hello?" Xephos asked to the metal man.

The Pirate Tinman adjusted his head slightly towards Xephos. There was a silence before the Warforged spoke, him voice deep, echoed and incomprehensible.

"**01001001 01100100 01101001 01101111 01110100 01111011."** he garbled.

"I think he won't hurt us..." Xephos said cautiously, confused by what he'd said. "He doesn't look like he's got any weapons on him and he doesn't look particularly offensive, so I think that we'll be okay." yet still his hand went to the pommel of his sword, sheathed at his side.

With the scrape of metal on stone Pirate Tinman then took a few slow steps backwards, the light from within him glowing along the walls. He continued slowly backwards, never moving his head nor making any sound, save the mystic sighs that echoed from his shell. Once he'd taken a number of steps backwards, the Tinman stopped, and slowly inclined his head to the area of wall that he'd been frozen staring at minutes before.

With great caution Xephos and Honeydew walked closer to where Pirate Tinman had nodded at, where they now saw that on the wall lay not only the ancient stone button that they'd already seen, but above there was etched in the wall an ancient inscription.

By the light of Pirate Tinman's face, Xephos read the carved letters.

""Two shall make way, one shall stand still."." he read the riddle aloud his own voice bouncing down the cavernous room. "I'm not quite sure what that means."

Honeydew was trying to think too, never taking his eyes off of Pirate Tinman, whom was standing sentinel only a few meters away. The Tall Dwarf rolled the riddle over in his head, attempting to figure out the answer using what he knew of Grimjaw. But to him there seemed to be something amiss. This storeroom, totally barren of any treasure seemed like an awful lot of effort to go to be only the entrance to the real treasure hold. And the working of the stone seemed to him to be ancient, not the work of any pirate, no matter how unnatural his powers were.

"What _does_ it mean?" Honeydew thought aloud, studying the carved letters. After a few more seconds of pondering, Honeydew grunted and pressed the button beneath the words, and bracing himself to run from the potential trap. Yet there was only a subtle click and then nothing as the button clicked back out of the wall.

"Wait..." Xephos spoke, turning and walking back down the corridor. "There was this trapdoor here, I saw it on the way in."

Honeydew turned to watch as his friend walked over to a large trapdoor at the beginning of the hallway, pressed up against the wall.

With several tugs, Xephos grunted as he managed to lift the heavy trapdoor from the stony ground and pushed it up against the wall, unveiling a short stone stairway down into a low ceilinged room, akin to a cellar.

"Oh, it's a dark hole." Xephos noted as Honeydew walked over to him, constantly aware of Tinman's surprisingly light footfalls as the Warforged followed him.

"_Darky, darky hole."_ Honeydew absentmindedly sung in the tune to _Diggy Diggy Hole_. The Dwarf walked down the brief flight of stairs, holding in hand one of the small precious lumps of glowstone, retrieved from the Yog-Cave nearly a month ago. Xephos followed him down into the room, leaving Pirate Tinman standing idle at the mouth of the hole.

The room that they entered was a small square room about as wide as the hallway outside, and all of the walls had enclaves cut into them.

"Strange..." Honeydew said as he walked to the center of the room, holding out the small golden pebble, which glowed brightly enough to light the entire room. "These enclaves in the wall look like something that bodies would have been placed. Why would Grimjaw have a tomb in his hold?"

"I don't know..." Xephos shrugged, crouching and peering into some of the lower shelves of stone, which was totally barren. "It does look kind of tomb-y. Like a morgue." He stood and crossed to the right of the room and scanned the shelves closest to the low ceiling. As he reached the middle of the shelves he spotted at the back a shadow, being cast by something so similar in colouration to the stone behind it that had the light from Honeydew's glowstone not caused it to cast a shadow, Xephos would've missed it entirely.

"Well there's nothing in here." Honeydew ceased to search the shelves and headed for the exit, where Tinman's feet were visible.

"Wait wait!" Xephos pulled him back. "There's a button up here on this shelf." Xephos pointed to it. "It's hard to see, but it's camouflaged."

"Are you sure?" Honeydew asked, walking over to the row of shelves and climbing up the first two like a ladder to better examine the top, peering in with the nugget of glowstone. "Oh gods, there is!" Honeydew leaned in closer to the button.

"Try pressing it maybe?" Xephos offered.

Honeydew did this, but the affect was similar to the one above them in the hallway.

"Well that didn't work." he turned to look at Xephos.

"There was the other button in the hallway..." Xephos said. "The one that Tinman was looking at."

"There's two buttons, Xephos." Honeydew stated. "Two buttons... and the clue is: "Two shall make way. One shall stand still."."

"Well, do you think that we will have to press both at the same time?" Xephos asked.

"It can't hurt to try." Honeydew said.

"Let's see what happens." Xephos turned to the exit, clambering out at Pirate Tinman's feet, who made no effort to move at all. He the ran to the button at the end of the hallway, now dark in the absence of Tinman's light.

"Are you ready?" Xephos yelled down the hall to Honeydew, still in the tomb.

"Yep, on the count of three, alright?" came the reply.

"Okay," Xephos answered. "Three, two, one, _press."_

On the last word they both pushed in the buttons at the same moment. For a brief second there was nothing, when there came from within the walls the sound of machinery moving and suddenly Xephos felt the floor fall away beneath him.

"Woah!" he cried out as the fell, then landed not too elegantly on the landing of another flight of stairs heading down that had just appeared in place of the floor.

"Ow." he moaned as he pulled himself to his feet.

"What's happened?" Honeydew asked, appearing at the top of the stairs with Tinman.

"I don't know..." Xephos looked up as the dwarf descended the short flight of stairs to meet him on the landing, where another longer set trailed down to the side Xephos's button was on. "The floor just disappeared. Must have been magic."

"Hah!" Honeydew laughed as he looked down the dark stairway. "Wow."

"This was hidden, or something." Xephos said.

"It's magic." Honeydew stated.

Xephos looked back up the stairs to where they'd been standing, totally unaware of what lay beneath them. Now Pirate Tinman stood there looking somewhat forlorn.

"Do you think that he's been here all of this time because he hasn't been able to solve this puzzle on his own?" Xephos asked, nodding towards Tinman when Honeydew turned to him. "That's a bit sad, isn't it?"

"Aww..." Honeydew sighed. "Oh dear..."

"Should we talk to him?" Xephos asked.

"Do you want to come with us?" Honeydew asked the ominous metal figure.

Tinman just stared at them for a while, then he slowly, if not reluctantly, nodded.

"He's nodding! He's nodding, Xephos!" Honeydew cried.

"'Right, let's go then." Xephos said, drawing one of his very last torches from his pack. Honeydew did this too, and lit both of them together with one strike of his flint and steel.

"_Follow me!"_ Honeydew yelled as Tinman walked down the stairs towards them before the three delved into the dark stairway. Their torches sent light dancing down the stairway, the air smelt dank and as they journeyed deeper they slowly grew colder.

eventually the stairs doubled back on themselves, and shortly after they ended, landing in another short corridor with a dead end, the only break in the stone walls coming from an iron grated door on the left, and along the corridor were several wooden levers jutting from both walls, like some sort of puzzling test awaiting them.

"Oh." Xephos said, stopping next to the door, looking ahead at the levers. "There's a whole bunch of levers here, and a door."

"Yeah..." Honeydew looked through the thick grating of the heavy door to the dark room beyond it.

"I like a lever puzzle, don't you?" Xephos asked Honeydew sarcastically.

"No...no I don't." Honeydew looked at the rows of levers in dread. "Oh gods! Look at all of these levers! Will only one of these levers open the door and the other's will, I don't know, unleash a horde of zombies?"

"I don't think so..." Xephos held his torch up and walked between the levers. "These puzzles seem to be that you're supposed to be able to solve them, like testing you, so I think that there's probably like a combination or something that we have to get right. There's also a button here, next to the door, I think we probably use that to test the combination."

"Oh gods, how will we figure that out?"

"Well do you know how we solve these puzzles?"

"Brute force?"

"TNT."

"Oh..." Honeydew said, for once without a devilish look about him. "I think that whoever made this likely installed some means of stopping that kind of thing from happening. Like burying mines under the ground so if we try to blow our way in we'd also get blown up." he cleared his throat. "Because I've been thinking, and this whole affair seems like an awful lot of trouble to hide away some gold, I mean think about it, if pirates had dug this out it would probably look really rough, and the magic that was used to hide the stairs seemed a bit out of Grimjaw's league."

"So...?"

"So I think that Grimjaw probably found this place and adopted it. The stone here was carved out a long time ago too, so it was probably some kind of temple for an ancient civilization, plus the tomb where the key was hidden was likely where the workers were buried, or something."

"Okay!" Xephos sighed. "We won't use TNT. I don't think that Tinman would be impressed if we started blowing doors off walls, either." he looked at the Pirate Tinman, standing silent behind Honeydew.

Xephos turned and haphazardly grasped the nearest lever to him, momentarily hesitating with his hand on the hard wooden shaft, then dismissing all thoughts pulled it down.

There was a faint clunk, and then to the fellowship's surprise, a single high clean note of music from a xylophone was played, and that was all.

"Oh?" Honeydew glanced at the door, but it hadn't opened. "So they play music?"

"I don't know..." Xephos replied, curious.

Xephos then proceeded down the corridor, pulling down on all of the levers, ten of them in total. They all played notes of music, most the same clear note as the first, but a few in stead made a noise akin to a snare drum.

"They all play musical cues." Xephos said to Honeydew from the end of the hallway.

"Only some of them do, others just make a weird noise." Honeydew was standing by one of the snare drum levers, pulling it up and down. "I thought that it was a dud, but I heard some others, and their note broken, I think."

"The drum ones?" Xephos asked as Honeydew walked over to him. "It's like a weird sort of-"

"Fart noise." Honeydew announced. _"Pfffept." _he spat, attempting to mimic the noise.

"Fart, no, it's a snare drum." Xephos corrected. "No, I think that we may have to have the snare's left up, and only the other ones down."

"Alright, let's try it."

It did not take them long to find the snare drum levers and return them to the upward position, leaving the others pulled down.

"I think that's it." Honeydew said after they had tested all of the levers.

"Let's try it out then." Xephos and Honeydew walked back to where Tinman stood next to the iron door, waiting. Xephos took no ceremony in pressing the stone button next to the door, and as he did, all of the xylophone keys suddenly played in succession. All of the notes that had before seemed so similar now played one after the other and as thy finished their song, the iron door snapped open.

"We did it Xephos, with the help of the Tinman!" Honeydew laugh, sarcasm visible as he turned and made to walk through the doorway, which suddenly snapped shut again. After much a few more time pressing the button, Xephos and Honeydew managed to make their way into the room beyond, a long stone room unadorned in the torchlight save for a lever behind them. Meanwhile, Tinman was having trouble getting through the door.

"You have to push the button!" Honeydew yelled at him as the metal man continued to press up against the door, like a tall ominous metal puppy. "He doesn't understand!" Honeydew groaned.

"I wonder what this does..." Xephos said, noticing the lever behind them. He pulled on the lever and suddenly the door swung open, and Tinman fell through and into Honeydew, who went sprawling onto the floor.

Pirate Tinman walked over to Honeydew, who he picked up under the armpits and placed him back on his feet, and, after a moment of staring blankly at him, Tinman adjusted Honeydew's helmet, which had come askew in his fall. Xephos was unable to keep the mirth out of his voice as he suggested that they continued down to the end of the room where a tunnel mouth yawned.

"Are we just bringing Tinman along for the ride?" Xephos asked as they started down the wide tunnel, thick enough to allow five men to walk abreast, their torches only barely fighting off the chill and darkness.

"Yeah!" Honeydew exclaimed. "He's our new friend."

Xephos suddenly found himself feet from a wall of gravel and dirt spewed from a rent in the wide ceiling, the cave-in sealing the tunnel off.

"What the hell is this?" Xephos asked leaning close to a small sign that had been driven into the dirt. "This big pile of rubble is in the way!" he complained as he read the sign aloud: _""The treasure is NOT behind this big pile of rubble. Note to self: bring a shovel next time._" We have a shovel." he turned to Honeydew who was already removing the entrenching tool that he'd taken from The Wall from his pack.

"You know what we must do?" The Dwarf asked as he began to dig away at the cave-in. "We must Diggy Diggy Hole."

Xephos smiled. "Of course."

In no time Honeydew had bored right into the dirt and gravel, carving out a tunnel like that of a colossal worm's, verses of _Diggy Diggy Hole _floating back to Xephos and Tinman at the entrance. It was only seconds later that Honeydew's entrenching tool broke through to the other side of the wall of debris, heat and light spilling into his face, causing him to squint.

"I see light!" Xephos called down the tunnel Honeydew had made.

"Oh, fuck! Yeah it's lava." Honeydew called back as he pulled himself out of the dirt and into the another room.

This one was large and high, stifling hot and lit too, but the source of the light was a curtain of orange magma streaming from the left wall into a pit that spanned the room, dividing one side from another. The only way across was on the right wall, where a thin ledge ran along the wall to the other side of the magma pit. Yet along the wall that the ledge ran along there were several small pits in the wall, all evenly spaced and ominous looking, but where the one closest to the side of the pit Honeydew stood should have been there was a large hole smashed into the wall, intent on revealing what lay behind, and what was seemed to be an elaborate crossbow, with a magazine of bolts above it and a self-loading system hooked into the main apparatus.

"What, the hell is this?" Xephos asked as he straightened up after emerging from the tunnel, Tinman following silently.

Xephos looked around the room, taking in the lava and the strange crossbow on the ledge. "There's gonna be more of those behind the other holes aren't there?" Xephos asked Honeydew.

"I think so. It looks like they fire automatically when you step on the pressure plates along the ledge."

"There are pressure plates on the ledge?" Xephos asked.

Honeydew nodded and pointed at the thin path over the fiery cauldron, where as he peered closer it was clear that along the length of the ledge were several large flat stone plates protruding from the floor, awaiting the feet of an unwary adventurer.

"What's this then-" Xephos began, making to cross in front of Honeydew over to the ledge where he saw more words embedded in the stone wall.

"Stop, stop stop!" Honeydew yelled, putting out a large arm, preventing Xephos from passing in front of him, as he stared warily at the floor.

"What?!"

"There's another pressure plate just here."

Xephos looked at Honeydew's feet and right where he'd meant to tread before the dwarf had stopped him was another of the flat plates that ran along the ledge, this one hidden against the floor.

"Oh...okay." Xephos stepped back away from it. "But there's writing on the wall over there." he pointed over, and Honeydew moved his torch closer to it so that the light of the magma wasn't the only thing illuminating it.

""_It hurts to be all alone."."_ Xephos read, when suddenly Tinman pushed past him and Honeydew. Before anything could be done to stop him, though, Pirate Tinman deliberately stepped right onto the pressure plate before them.

"Oh gods!" Honeydew jumped back, expecting a trap to be activated any moment. "Dammit Tinman!" he yelled

"Wait, wait..." Xephos urged as Tinman, still on the plate, turned to face them. Seconds ticked by, and still nothing occurred. "Well, he's still alive, he hasn't been catapulted into lava or anything..."

"So what's it for?" Honeydew asked, cautiously shimmying back over to the ledge.

"It hurts to be all alone..." Xephos said thoughtfully. "Maybe when someone's on the plate here in cancels the redstone current that the ones on the ledge cause, so you can pass over it?" he walked over to the ledge. "Stay there; Tinman." he ordered.

"What are you doing?" Honeydew asked as Xephos, avoiding standing in front of the automatic crossbow, stretched his leg out and pressed down on the first plate, there was a click, a slight fizz of redstone following a current and then, nothing.

"Aha!" Xephos yelled in success. "It works! Also, I'll take a few of these too." he reached into the mounted crossbow and began pilfering the arrows inside. "I've been needing some arrows, how about you?" he asked Honeydew.

"Oh yes. That'd be great, man. Cheers."

"Okay, it's a bloody big crossbow, so the bolt will fit my bow, but you may need to shorten them for the crossbow."

Honeydew still took the arrows, and nervously eyed the ledge.

"Are we sure this will work?" he asked.

"Sure it will, here I'l go first-"

"No, you'll get yourself killed again." Honeydew said firmly. "Stand on the plate and I'll go."

Xephos shrugged and stepped over to Tinman, who moved off the plate so Xephos could stand on it. It took all of Xephos' weight plus some stamping to get the whole plate down, causing Xephos to hope that he'd never need to carry Tinman anywhere, as he'd weighed the plate down easily.

When they were sure that the plate was firmly activated Honeydew, with his back to the wall began to shuffle as quickly as possible across the ledge, tensing at every click of the ancient pressure plates until finally he arrived at the other side of the lava pit.

"Are you alright?" Xephos called over the lava.

"Y-es" Honeydew squeaked. "There's another plate over here, it probably does the same thing as the other one."

"Okay then, I'll go next" Xephos moved cautiously off the plate, and as a precaution, Tinman stepped onto it. "Thanks Tinman." he said before starting over the ledge. Waves off heat hit him as he shimmied across the gap, the constant clicking of the plates was only outmatched in foreboding by the constant popping of the the magma, followed by nonstop sound that it made as it flowed, not too dissimilar to two rocks grinding together, backed by distant thunder. He couldn't have arrived at the other side too soon.

"I'm okay..." he gasped wiping sweat from his face. "Gods that's horrible, and now Tinman has to come over too."

When they looked up Tinman was already halfway over the ledge, edging across at a near reckless speed. As he approached the last plate though the click and fizz of the plate was followed by the sound of a bowstring snapping taut, and an arrow flying into metal. Tinman was unfazed by the arrow, which bounced off his metal head and into the magma.

"Gods, are you alright, Tinman?" asked Xephos as the warforged crossed the last of the ledge and strode over to Honeydew.

"Sorry about that, I accidently-Oof!" Honeydew started before Tinman punched him solidly in the gut, sending the hardly dwarf staggering.

Honeydew gasped for air as Xephos chuckled at the two.

"He hit me!" Honeydew gasped.

"So what?" Xephos laughed, turning to where another wide tunnel began on the same wall as the ledge. "Man up, bitch, come on."

Xephos walked into the tunnel, followed by Tinman and Honeydew, after he'd recovered.

"But, isn't he supposed to follow the laws of robotics? "Thou shalt not harm, or by inaction harm a human being."?"

"Well I guess that you're a dwarf so it doesn't count." Xephos said, following the tunnel as turned left sharply. Strangely the tunnels had not ceased in their heat, and if not had grown even hotter. As Xephos pondered this the tunnel turned into a stone stairway, heading upwards, and at the top there seemed to be a light flashing from around a left hand corner.

"Oh..." he stopped as Honeydew and Pirate Tinman caught up, looking up at the light as it flashed brightly, then dimmer a few times, and then stopped. "There's a flashing light up there, Honeydew, and I'm a bit worried by it."

"Ah, it'll be fine." Honeydew dismissed, pushing Xephos aside, walking staunchly up the stairs. He had already been at the top a long while before Xephos and Tinman arrived, he was staring seriously at the source of the lights.

"Okay," he said as Xephos drew closer. "It isn't fine. Oh my gods."

Xephos looked around the corner to see that the light's he'd seen had been cast huge gouts of fire, erupting from the ground in rows, cutting off the rest of the hallway as one by one the rows of pipes sent up walls of fire in sequence, before briefly dying, leaving a short window of opportunity to get through before the fire shot up again.

"Oh gods!" Xephos yelled as he jumped back from the fire as the nearest set of pipes shot flames right to the ceiling, cascading heat back at the three. "Is this like a gauntlet, or something?" Xephos asked.

"We have to run across." Honeydew spoke in a voice thick with dread. "Oohh gods." he sighed loudly. "How do we...this isn't gonna end well."

"There are gaps in between the jets, I think the idea is to wait in the gaps before the fire comes back up." Xephos suggested as the fire before him died and then the one behind it, then the next, and next, until the third one went out, and with a _fwoosh_ the curtain of flame shot back up, the sound of more jets activating could be heard even through the roar of hungry flames.

"Oh shit!" Honeydew yelled.

"I think we should go on the next one!" Xephos yelled at him. "I think if we get the timing right then we can just run all the way to the end."

"Okay...okay..." Honeydew said, bracing himself. "Oh shit, this is bad."

"I'll go first, I think that we should go one at a time, so we don't knock anyone over or anything." Xephos suggested.

"Okay..." Honeydew agreed, when suddenly the fire guttered out before them.

Xephos tentatively ran forwards as the next fire died in front of him, then the next, even though he hadn't even passed the second set of jets. He sprinted over it, and then the third, when there came the roar of fire, and as Xephos crossed the third set of jets, it spat forth a great plume of fire, searing the air before the fourth activated in front, increasing the temperature further. It didn't take long before the fire behind him to die again, and then the one before Xephos. He ran as fast he could over the fourth jet, then fifth, and with fire at his heels he dove over the sixth less than a second before it sprayed fire up to the ceiling.

He lay on the floor panting for a long while, before sitting up, wiping the sweat from his face, and getting to his feet, when there came a deep yell from down the hall way. Xephos looked to be greeted with the sight of Honeydew barreling down the hall as the fires died, screaming a battle cry at the top of his lungs, stopping for nothing, even when the fire appeared in front of him, the dwarf leapt through it, years of working in hot forges within the belly of the deserts that outlined Dwergholm had made him all but immune to fire. This characteristic was shared by all dwarves, earning them a reputation as legendary dragon slayers for their ability to resist dragon-flame.

"Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!" the dwarf yelled as he barged through the last wall of orange flame, none of it seeming to touch him.

"Shit, are you all right!?" Xephos asked as Honeydew calmed down.

"It's fine, fire can't touch me! Gods, I felt like I was being baked though."

"Where's Tinman?" Xephos asked. A few seconds later the fire wall disappeared and traveling at a phenomenal speed Pirate Tinman came charging through into the end of the hallway, he'd managed to maintain enough speed that he was able to charge through the gauntlet in one go.

"Holy crap." Honeydew gawked as Tinman came to a sudden stop, extending an arm as he skidded at speed into the end of the corridor, knocking a hole into the solid rock. "You sure can move for a lump of metal."

"I guess that we continue this way." Xephos suggested, pushing forwards into another long dark corridor to the left of the end of the gauntlet. Surprisingly the corridor ended not long after thirty yards, a wall of what looked like heavy green felt, and another carved message on the wall to it's left, this one reading:

_Kill it,_

_kill it_

_with fire!_

"Well would you like to do the honors?" Honeydew asked Xephos, gesturing to the very dry looking felt wall.

"I'm beginning to get sick of this." Xephos sighed as he held his torch to the center wall.

It ignited instantaneously, the flame turning green with the dye of the felt and eating away at it from the middle and continuing into the thick mass of fabric.

It took many long minutes for the hallway to clear, and even then there were scraps of burning debris lying about, causing the company to walk with caution through the now opened corridor, sidestepping the rags and ducking away from the smoke, which centuries old vents in the ceiling were busy sucking away.

They reached the end of the corridor where the ceiling continued straight forwards, whilst the floor gently inclined into a smooth stairway, hunks of glowstone now coming to life in the walls as the descended to the end of the stair where the ceiling dropped back down to an archway made of obsidian, not too dissimilar to a portal.

"Okay this looks promising." Xephos said eagerly as they headed for the gateway to whatever lay beyond.

"It does agreed Honeydew.

They entered the gateway and beyond was another corridor, this one high ceilinged and grander, the floor of paved flagstone and walls with curtains of magma spilling from the top to be caught in stone troughs in a surprisingly decorative fashion.

"Oh... what's this?" asked Xephos, suspicious that the second they set foot in the room that hot magma would begin to flood the room.

"I'm scared." Honeydew spoke out. "I can't survive lava."

"Well there's no pressure plates that i can see..." Xephos said, stepping carefully into the room. They continued to the end of the hall watching every step, until they reached the end where another obsidian gateway opened up into a huge cavern, the ground, a lake of magma, far below. Yet hanging from the cave ceiling were two large stone platforms, far apart, stone pillars like chains connecting them to the ceiling, their bases gripped by stalactites.

"Oh, what is this!?" Xephos yelled, staring at the huge distance between the gateway and the first platform, then it's twin, and the corridor on the other side's opening. Xephos looked about, hoping for a clue, and lo and behold upon the side of the gateway were more carved letters.

"What are these?!" Xephos read. _"X-2 0/-="_

"What." Honeydew looked at it blankly.

"What does that even say! What does it mean!?"

In a bid to figure out the puzzle, the heroes paid no mind to Pirate Tinman, who stared at the words, the machinery working within hid mind, devising equations and solving them within the space of a second, the answer once again came down to the pressure plate.

It took a while for Xephos and Honeydew to notice Tinman was pointing at the stone plate, as they'd been attempting to figure out the answer to the sum.

"So we've got to stand on the button?" Xephos asked, looking at Tinman. "Or a pressure plate, even."

"I think we should." Honeydew took a step closer to it, fully aware that he was only inches away from a long drop into lava.

"Oh gods, what's it going to do?" Xephos asked.

Honeydew stamped down on the old plate, and it sunk into the ground. Moments after there was a low humming noise, and to their astonishment, before them, spanning the gap between their ledge to the first of the hanging stone platforms appeared a thin railless bridge of stone where there had been thin air previously.

"Oh look!" Honeydew cried, stepping forward towards the bridge, yet as soon as his foot came off the plate, the bridge vanished again, and his foot found no ground. The dwarf teetered on the edge, arms flailing and threatened to go over the edge. Xephos suddenly reached out and grabbed his friend by his pack and pulled him back onto the ground, where they lay sprawled in disarray.

Honeydew let out a squeak of a sigh, relieved.

"So it seems as though it's a temporary bridge, it only lasts as long as someone stands on the plate." Xephos said, helping Honeydew up.

"Hopefully there's another one of the plates on the other platforms."

"I'll go first then." Xephos offered. "Do you want to stand on the plate here then?"

"Okay..." Honeydew cautiously stepped onto the plate and the bridge reappeared.

"Right," Xephos pushed past Honeydew, careful to not knock him off the plate.

"Are you sure about this?" Honeydew asked as Xephos took his first tentative step onto the bridge, half expecting it to drop away at any given moment. "Do you actually trust me on this?"

"Look," said Xephos sternly, turning. "Just stay there. Stay there."

"Okay," Xephos once more turned to face the bridge, increasing the frequency of his pace as he continued along the length of the enchanted stone bridge.

He finally made it to the other side of it, stepping off the bridge and into the hanging platform.

"Okay, I've made it!" Xephos called back over to Honeydew, who was still planted on the pressure plate. "There's also another plate here!" Xephos wiped the sweat away from his forehead as he stepped onto his own plate. The same humming filled the chamber and in the next instant another bridge, identical to the first, appeared traversing the gap to the next of the platforms.

"There!" he called over to Honeydew. "See if that keeps your bridge up!"

Honeydew stepped off of the plate, yet in spite of Xephos' hypothesis, his bridge vanished.

"Oh gods! How am _I_ supposed to get over?!" he yelled across to Xephos voice echoing around the cavern.

"Well, I'm standing on this one and it's doing nothing, so maybe Tinman has to?" Xephos advised across the gap. "I guess that must be it,"

"Okay, I'll ask him, hang on..." Honeydew now turned to the Pirate Tinman, who'd been standing idle for the last minute or so.

"Excuse me?" Honeydew asked him cautiously. Tinman's head jerked about to stare at him. "Could you stand here, please?"

Tinman without word or withstraint stepped onto the plate, conjuring the bridge back into being across the gap.

"Alright," Honeydew breathed huskily, "Good man...good man." The dwarf too made a quick crossing of the bridge, half expecting and act of revenge from Tinman after he'd stepped off on the plate at the arrow trap. Yet he made his way over to the platform without an issue, joining Xephos.

"Right," Xephos said to his friend. "Now we're both here, I think that you will need to go to that other platform now, because I'm standing on this one here." he pointed over the bridge he had made to the final platform before the corridor continued in the other side of the cliff.

"Okay," Honeydew agreed, quickly staggering over the bridge to the next platform, standing on the next plate. "Alright," he called over to his friend. "But how are you supposed to get across if there's no one to stand on yours for you?" he asked, standing off of his own plate.

"I'm not sure..." Xephos stepped of his plate too, causing the bridge before him to vanish. "Hmm..." he rubbed his sweat soaked goatee, struggling to concentrate in the heat. "Maybe if you stand on you one in will keep the bridge up?" Xephos suggested over the lava chasm.

"Oh yeah, that might work," Honeydew stepped onto his, and the tell-tale humm of the bridge foretold of it's activation.

"Alright, stay there!" Xephos ordered as soon as it appeared, and wasting no time almost ran over the slim bridge.

"Gods, it worked!" Xephos turned to face the opposite way, where Tinman was standing on the far side, as impartial as ever, yet as he'd seemed when they first saw him, he seemed somewhat dejected. "Oh gods, we're leaving Tinman behind!"

"Maybe there'll be a pad at the other side that activates all of the bridges." Honeydew suggested.

"Maybe..." Xephos turned on the platform, facing the continued hallway, where another of the bridges stood, spanning totally across the gap. "How is this one kept up?" Xephos asked.

"It's the same one as I'm on now." Honeydew replied.

"Okay, stay there, Honeydew." Xephos said, as he began over the bridge, reaching the other side finally.

"Okay," he called over to Honeydew. "There's one last plate here!" he called over to his friend. "I'll see if it allows you both to cross." with that Xephos, in the mouth of the corridor stepped onto the last plate, and Honeydew stepped off his, there was no change at all, the bridge between the last platform and the corridor remained, yet across the gaps between the platforms, Tinman stood silently as Honeydew crossed into the hallway.

"_Tinman!"_ Honeydew bellowed over the cavern, they were unsure if the Warforged even heard him, as he made no movement.

"Oh gods!" Xephos called. We'll come back for you, Tinman! We'll come back!"

"I promise we'll return for you, my friend!" Honeydew bellowed. "I promise that we'll come back to find you!" Honeydew turned down the corridor. "I don't like him. I'm not coming back. I'll probably never even see him again."

"Well he's made of metal, he could probably swim this," Xephos suggested.

"I don't think that would work." Honeydew said. "Lava would melt metal any day."

"Well, he's the necessary sacrifice." Xephos said as he turned to follow Honeydew down the hallway, surprisingly bright and draped with red cloth along the walls.

Yet had they bothered to look back, they would have seen a man made of metal walk to the edge of the corridor he stood in and turning right, he would slowly walk down a stone stairway, previously unseen, and behind a curtain of lava, vanishing.

"We'll come back," Xephos assured as they followed the finely adorned corridor. "We'll come back- oh gods he's gonna be stuck down here forever, isn't he? Isabel is _not _gonna be pleased."

"Well he's been in that vault for ages, so it shouldn't hurt to wait a while longer."

The corridor snaked for a while until they came to a steep stairway, descending deep into the stone, surely near the layer of indestructible bedrock. They reached the bottom landing, a floor of red and black checker-board, opening up into a huge high ceilinged box of a room, were tall walls of mossy stone stood, reaching high to the roof, yet were still nowhere near close.

"Oh crikey, where are we now? Oh gods, a fucking maze." Xephos sighed, looking ahead as the stone walls opened into other halls and turned away.

"What's this here?" Honeydew said, as he stood at the foot of a small narrow stairway on the left wall that ascended up into the rock. He started up followed by Xephos, and after a short climb the stairs doubled back and opened into a room where a faint light beckoned.

"What's up here?" Xephos asked as Honeydew entered.

"Oh, my, gods..." Honeydew's voice replied.

Xephos entered the small room where all walls were unadorned stone save one of glass facing out over the huge sprawling labyrinth, the moss green walls tangling like snakes across the expanse, but what was most daunting lay at the other end. Upon the opposite wall, far across the sea of writhing worms carved into the wall was an immense skull, matching if not beating Skull Pass for size, and surpassing it it horror. The misshapen cranium's eyes were sunken, tiny pricks of glowing light staring blankly out, it's teeth golden, pointed, and huge.

"Oh brilliant." Xephos said as he surveyed the scene, sure that within the maze he saw the flicker of monster spawners.

"That's one heck of a view." Honeydew blankly stated.

"A maze full of monsters, and probably traps."

"And a big skull at the end as a reward." Honeydew sighed. "Well fuck."


	22. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter22

Chapter 22: The Betrayer.

A sad, mournful moan echoed through the huge cavern of the labyrinth, the high pitched noise bouncing from the walls of the maze and rushed up to greet the two figures standing at the mouth of the maze.

"Is that a ghast I hear?" Honeydew asked upon entering the maze, turning to look, nervousness and fear in his voice, at Xephos, then looking skywards.

"Probably..." Xephos said quietly, trying to avoid alerting anything within the maze.

"Oh...fantastic." Honeydew groaned.

There came another moan, as they began to walk further into the maze slowly from over the walls floated a huge white monstrosity, a bloated body a single heaving pod, so light that it was almost translucent, it's underside a mass of tentacles of eclectic lengths dangling aimlessly as it turned it's horrible huge white face, horrifyingly human-like, with closed eyes and a tight mouth, lips burnt. The monstrous ghast turned to face down at Xephos and Honeydew as the gazed up at it's sickening form floating over the maze like the envelope of an airship.

"Oh my gods, it's horrible." Xephos said lowly.

At the sound, the ghast's eye's suddenly opened, and it stopped mid-moan, staring down at the two of them with horrible red, swollen eyes. It let out a shriek and opened it's mouth wide. From down it's throat the two could see fire building up as it forced forth a ball of compacted netherrack from it's gut. The ghast spat the rock ball towards them with alarming speed, and with an explosion it crashed into the maze wall they stoop in front of.

"Oh my gods!" Honeydew yelled as the ghast began to shriek again, attempting to bring forth another bomb, sculpted within it's belly. "Run!"

They attempted to run down the corridor, aiming to make a turn at the first left, when as they neared it a huge spider climbed over the wall and dropped down on top of Honeydew.

"Spiders!" Xephos cried, unsheathing his sword as Honeydew bashed it against the wall making it let go for Xephos to finish off. "The ghast must've alerted them with it's crying." on cue, another fireball smashed into the wall, and thankfully due to the inaccuracy of the ghast, it landed yards from them, hitting the wall and causing it to crack.

"We need to take out the ghast!" Honeydew decided, drawing his pistol crossbow, nocking three bolts into the string, side by side and drawing it back.

"What is the best way to go through this maze?" Xephos asked as he killed another spider that had dropped over the wall.

"Uh..." Honeydew murmured as he aimed his crossbow. "We kill the ghast first, then we find a route."

"_If_ we can kill it." Xephos yelled as it prepared to launch another ball. Honeydew fired the bow and watched as all three of the bolts flew towards the ghast. They shore through the body as though it was made of tissue paper.

The ghast screamed so loudly that xephos and Honeydew went to block their ears, but it had subsided before they could. The body of the ghast bled no blood, but over the sound of hundreds of spiders within the maze they could hear a hiss as from the ghast's body issued the natural helium the caused it to float. The monster soon sank below the walls of the maze, where it would die.

"I killed it! I killed it!" Honeydew yelled excitedly as it began to disappear.

"Nice, but we're not out of the woods yet!" Xephos called, pointing behind Honeydew where two spiders rounded the corner and started for them. Xephos un-shouldered his bow and took aim as Honeydew rounded and quickly killed the first while Xephos neatly shot the second.

"Bloody hells bells." Honeydew sighed as they pushed forwards, finally rounding the first corner.

"I think what we need to look out for are creepers spawning on the walls and dropping down on our heads." Xephos advised, looking up at the walls suspiciously. "Where did that bloody ghast come from, anyway?"

"There must be some kind of magic that was used to bring it in from the Nether." Honeydew said quietly as they took a right-hand turn.

"We need to watch out for spiders too-" right as Xephos said this, two jet black spiders fell in between him and Honeydew right as Honeydew took another right through a doorway sized gap in the wall.

"Gods!" Xephos swore, as he killed the first at near point blank range with his bow, and killed the next by stabbing it through the thorax.

"What is it?" Honeydew asked, coming back through the doorway as Xephos withdrew his sword and yet another two spiders fell amongst them, both of which were slain quickly by the two.

"I think we should keep moving." Xephos said. "That should keep the spiders off of us, also I don't think we should go through that door. I know of a technique for getting through mazes. All that you need to do is follow the left wall and eventually you'll get to the end."

"Alright." Honeydew agreed as he and Xephos started off along the left wall, the light growing dimmer as they ventured deeper into the maze.

As they continued to wind through the labyrinth Honeydew lit a torch to fend off the dark, but as they progressed, Xephos heard something, sets of footsteps that were not their own.

"Wait," Xephos said, stopping Honeydew. As he listened he heard the foot falls grow louder. Taking Honeydew's torch Xephos took a few paces back down the corridor towards the noise, when out of the gloom the shining red eyes of an entire swarm of spiders appeared, the walls seemed to crawl as the surged to wards the light.

"Oh shit," Xephos breathed.

"What is it?" Honeydew called back.

"Spiders," Xephos said turning and running back towards Honeydew, the spiders in pursuit. "lots and lots of spiders!"

He passed Honeydew back the torch as he ran past, and as the bemused dwarf stood looking down the corridor he too saw the seething mass of arachnids. He soon caught up with Xephos, feverishly following the left wall as they attempted to outpace the spiders.

"Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!" Honeydew yelled.

"This is not good, I don't like this!" Xephos looked over his shoulder as the spiders gained. "Gods, I'm terrified, I'm panicking! OH GODS!"

"Keep it together! _Keep it together!"_ Honeydew yelled.

"It's so claustrophobic in here!" Xephos once more checked over his shoulder, and cried out when he saw that they were only yards ahead of the spiders.

Honeydew ran ahead as the maze took another left, and let out a scream of rage when he saw what lay ahead.

"What is it?" asked Xephos, rounding the corner pulling Honeydew with him, even as he saw what was ahead: a dead end, trapping them between a rock wall and a swarm of spiders.

"There's no way out!" Honeydew yelled as they reached the end of the corridor, a solid stone wall stretching twenty yards high with no foot nor hand holds.

"Look's like we're fighting our way out." Xephos said, turning with his sword drawn.

"Oh gods, I'm gonna be killed by spiders! Why couldn't I have drunk myself to death in an nice ale alehouse with a girl on my knee!"

The swarm was now upon them, spiting and glaring, yet they held back, only occasionally pouncing forwards with a hiss before retreating back into the horde, taunting them.

"What are they waiting for?" Xephos asked.

Then from within the ranks of the spiders crawled forth a spider bigger and more ancient than all the rest. She was the brood mother, queen of all of her children, and they would not attack until her command.

The brood mother stalked closer, her legs gnarled and abdomen huge and bulbous, a red hourglass upon it. She stood just before Xephos and Honeydew, her head nearly level with theirs as she nearly filled the entire hallway.

"On three, I'll hit her over the head and stun her, then we'll see if we can run up her back and jump for the top of the wall." Honeydew whispered lowly.

Xephos said nothing, just stared at the brood mother.

"Okay then..." Honeydew braced himself. "One..."

Over the chittering of the spiders, there came a louder noise, a deep murderous throttling wail, constantly changing pitch as it echoed down the corridor towards them. Xephos and Honeydew felt their blood freeze.

The spiders excited chittering suddenly turned to minute squeaks that almost mimicked screams. The brood mother then very quickly turned and scampered up the left wall. at the sign to abandon their prey, the rest of the swarm too surged over the walls in a huge smattering of legs on stone.

"What was that all about?" Xephos asked unsurely, not daring to move.

"Why would they just leave us? They had us cornered." Honeydew looked about suspiciously. "And what was that noise?"

"I don't know..."

The sound of the spiders now vanished and they were left totally alone in the darkness.

Almost alone.

From somewhere closer by that horrible scream came again, but closer, and from around the corner of the dark corridor there suddenly shone a dull light, and with it the sound of something colossal dragging itself closer and closer, partnered by the sound of heavy labored breathing as the light grew brighter.

"What is that?" Xephos whispered, turning to Honeydew. "Honeydew, what's coming?"

"I don't know." The dwarf replied reaching for his crossbow. "I've only got one bolt left." he said, knocking it in and drawing it back.

"What happened to the arrows I gave you from the trap?" Xephos whispered urgently.

"I haven't had time to modify them for my crossbow, alright!" Honeydew yelled.

At the noise, there came another deep scream as the creature dragged itself closer.

"Oh gods! Oh gods!" Honeydew wailed.

"Come on!" Xephos yelled as the lights became brighter and the dragging louder. "We can fight this thing! We can kill it!"

"That bloody _thing _scared off an entire swarm of giant spiders!"

From directly around the corner of the corridor came a sudden deep, throaty moan as several long white tendrils snaked around the corner, so white that they were almost translucent.

"Oh shit." Xephos swore.

"Fuck." Honeydew agreed.

The ghast pulled itself around the corner, tentacles bracing against the walls and floor as it attempted to move it's great bulk along the stone floor without the aid of it's helium sacs, it's bulk taking up the entire corridor as it's red eyes blazed with an enraged light.

The ghast screamed at them, it's high voice now deep and unstable due to the lack of helium in it's system and the three holes ripped it it's body.

"Fuck you!" Xephos said, shooting off an arrow into it's right eye, which only served to madden it further. The ghast's tendrils lashed out and made to grab Honeydew, who shot his last bolt at the tentacle, sending it away while the tall dwarf drew his axe and sword. Xephos dodged a swipe from one arm only to be picked up by another. Xephos with his bastard sword in hand hacked at the beast's tentacle, severing it where it held him, dropping to the ground where even as he landed he had to fend off more tendrils while Honeydew hacked and slashed beside him. The ghast was by now in a fury beyond measure and it's already mutant shrieks were now even further distorted as it formed within it's gut an explosive ball of netherrack to spit at the two. Xephos saw the creature, with it's blazing eyes readying to shoot, drawing back it's tentacles and opening it's charred mouth where a ball of flaming netherrack rested. Without thinking twice, Xephos grabbed his dwarven friend and leapt towards the ghast as it spat out it's explosive payload. He dragged Honeydew to the floor as the ball flew past and collided with the wall behind them, which fired at such a close range, caused the wall to crumble. Xephos, having successfully pulled Honeydew away from the blast radius of the explosion, helped get the dwarf to his feet as the ghast raged.

"We've got to go, there's a way out!" Xephos yelled over the ghast as it's tendrils sprang forwards to attack once more.

"It's only going to come after us again, though!" Honeydew answered.

Then from atop the walls a spider, rivaling the ghast in size leapt onto the giant white face of it's swarm's long time terroriser and bit into it's weak flesh. The ghast's shrieks were only to be drowned out as the entire swarm of black bodied spiders leapt off of the walls onto the ghast, sensing it's weakness and attacking with their brood mother.

"Holy fuck!" Honeydew yelled watching as the Ghast was overwhelmed. "Hah! I never though I'd be thankful for a huge swarm of giant spiders."

"Okay, Honeydew we should go. I'm afraid if we stay they may come after us." Xephos stood halfway through the hole in the back wall blown open by the ghast.

"Oh shit, you're right." Honeydew followed Xephos out of the exit and the two ran off together into the darkness, keeping to the left wall, as somewhere behind them the ghast gave a horrifying death rattle followed by a strange chirping chorus of spiders.

For a long while they continued to wind about he maze, constantly following the left wall in hopes that it would guide them to the exit. Only rarely did they spy a spider perched atop the wall, and always they allowed the two to pass unmolested, only staring at them.

Eventually hours later from over the walls of the maze suddenly loomed the huge stone skull carved into the exit, separated from the two by only one wall. Honeydew found in the right wall a large doorway sized gap through the wall between the skull and them, leading on to a long ramp leading into the skeleton's mouth, carved into the likeness of the skull's tongue.

"Yes!" Honeydew yelled in triumph as he and Xephos started up the tongue into the leering grin of the skull. "Well bugger me!" Honeydew looked up at the huge golden teeth the size of his body, many of which were missing, likely due to the pirates using the place as a store room and take the occasional tooth as they left.

Xephos looked past Honeydew who was marveling the golden teeth, to where the inside of the mouth sealed off and the tongue met a wall. On a large plinth at the back sat a huge sea chest, ornate with swirls like waves cut into the surface of the hardwood face. Xephos walked over to the chest and out of the light of Honeydew's torch, but as he approached the chest, something standing to the right of the chest stirred.

"How did _you_ get here?!" Xephos yelled at the intruder.

"What?" Honeydew asked, turning away from the tooth as he'd pulled out his pickaxe. "What." he repeated as he laid eyes on Pirate Tinman, standing in the corner near the chest.

"How did he get here before us?!" Xephos said, turning to look at Honeydew. "We left him behind, how did he get past the lava?"

"Are you kidding me?" Honeydew yelled, walking over, his loud voice echoing throughout the skull. "Oh come on..."

"How-" Xephos began to ask Tinman, but though better of enticing another stream of numbers as a response from him.

"But is this the treasure?" Honeydew asked, pointing at the great chest.

The two stared at it for a long while, imagining what could lie within after the years of raiding the high seas.

"Go on, open it." Honeydew pressed to Xephos.

"Okay..."

Xephos stepped towards the chest as Tinman and Honeydew watch him slowly lift open the heavy lid of the bed sized box.

"Ah..." Xephos stuttered. "What!?"

"Uhhh..." Honeydew said as he looked into the box too. Within the chest was bare. Not a coin nor jewel rested within, only centuries of dust.

"There's nothing in here!" Honeydew exclaimed as Xephos swept the bottom of the box with his hand, hoping to find something hidden in the dust.

"No! Wait..." Xephos called out after his fingers brushed something in the inch deep dust. "It's..." he said as he pulled from within the dust the only two things left in the chest. "A button and a musical disc." Xephos turned around, blowing the dust from a black vinyl and the small green inner ring around the spy-hole in the middle, and in the other hand holding a small, shallow stone cylinder.

"A musical disc?" Honeydew said, hoping that it may be of some value.

"Not even a rare disc, just a shitty green one." Xephos spat. "I suppose that we could steal some of the gold off of the teeth though..."

"Yeah," Honeydew agreed, walking over to one of the huge teeth with a pick axe, and began to drearily pick away at the solid gold, striking off small nuggets for collection.

"Only a shitty green one?" Honeydew asked.

"Yeah, what the hell's happened to all of the treasure?!" Xephos complained. "Where's the map! It was supposed to be here, Jock said it would be!"

"I don't know!" Honeydew sighed, picking up several of the gold nuggets and placing them in his pack.

"Tinman?" Xephos asked, out of desperation. The metal man did not respond.

"Maybe he can play the record?" Honeydew asked walking back over to the two.

"What help would that be?"

But as Xephos said this Tinman extended his arm and stood with his hand open, gesturing for the disc.

"There we go, I think he wants it." Honeydew said.

"Okay," Xephos said nervously "be careful with it." Xephos then reached out and placed the record in Tinman's metal hand. He then jerked his head towards the disc, staring at it.

"He's just kind of staring at it..." Xephos mumbled. "How would he play it anyway?"

"He's gonna bend over and slip it between his butt-cheeks." Honeydew jeered.

Xephos laughed, but stopped as tin man then went to undo his belt.

"Oh my gods, he is as well!" Honeydew gasped. "Urrr...Don't look! Turn your back on him! Don't look, don't look!" he and Xephos hurried to turn around as there came the sound of Tinman's trousers dropping to the floor, and then the sound of something sliding between two sheets of metal, then a whirring of gears and an increase in Tinman's usual magical sounds emanating from his body.

Honeydew and xephos faced away for a long while, not quite sure when to turn around.

"Gods, it's like Fumblemore all over again." Honeydew breathed.

Xephos snorted as he waited.

"Do you think he's done yet?" he asked, risking a glance over at Tinman, who was buckling up his trousers. "Oh he's done, Honeydew."

The two of them turned to Tinman who stood totally still.

"Well?" Honeydew asked.

"Tinman?"

Suddenly from Tinman's mouth issued a green light beam which hit the floor between them and in a flash of green they suddenly stood once more in the mouth of the skull, but everything was the same green of Tinman's beam. "Wait, what?!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Why has everything changed? What happened?"

"Hold on..." Xephos looked around, noticing that the golden tooth that Honeydew had mangled was now once more full. "No, I think this is a spell or something like in Verigan's hold, except older and, greener."

"Oh so it's like a recording!" Honeydew said, looking over at Tinman.

"Wait, someone's coming!" Xephos hushed his friend as they heard the approach of a set of heavy footsteps. Xephos felt himself wanting to hide, but reminded himself that this was some kind of memory of the room recorded in the disc in the chest.

The footfalls got louder until someone appeared along the tongue of the skeleton.

"Who's that?" Xephos stepped closer to the memory of the man. "Oh my gods..."

"It's Jock!" Honeydew yelled as the green memory of Jock moved over to the chest. "So _he_ took the map!"

"Wait, when was this taken?" Xephos asked.

"Probably only hours ago, he's wearing the same clothes, and he looks exactly the same,"

"Why would he do this?"

"Because he's gone bad! He's in cahoots with Israphel, and came to take the map before we could get it."

Memory Jock opened the chest, but before the three could run over to see what lay within, the big pirate shut the lid after only taking out one thing; A small piece of paper.

"Look! He's god damn taken our treasure!" Xephos pointed at the map fragment. "Son of a bitch!"

"Har har, they haven't got here yet. Har har! Master shall be pleased. Har har har har har!" Memory Jock laughed as he pocketed the map and ran over to the right corner of the skull's mouth, where a previously unseen tunnel lay. As he disappeared, the green light flashed again, and Honeydew Xephos and Tinman all stood normally in the skull again.

"So Jock's got map!?" Xephos asked. "So we have to go back to the bay, put him to the sword, maybe?"

"Maybe." Honeydew shrugged. "He's with Israphel now I guess so we have to. Gods, he's gonna be hard to kill. Look at the size of him."

"Well it looks like we go down this tunnel he went down then." Xephos suggested, as he led Honeydew into the darkness and by torchlight found the tunnel.

"What is this button for, though?" Xephos asked, looking at the strange rock.

"I suppose it opens something," Honeydew guessed as Xephos looked down the tunnel.

"Oh, there's an iron door down there, Honeydew? There's a door. That's what the button will be for."

"Oh?" Honeydew said.

"I suppose that it goes in here then." Xephos moved forward closer to the door, where a hole the exact size of the key was located where the knob would normally be. He gently pushed the button into the slot until the lock clicked and the iron door creaked open on rusty hinges.

"Cool." Honeydew said as Xephos walked through.

"I guess we just head on through here then..." Xephos looked down the long dark tunnel. "Do you want to lead the way? It's a little dark."

"Little bit bloody?" Honeydew said as he pushed past Xephos carefully with his torch held out against the darkness. "Little bit dark? Little bit on the dark side? Pretty dark, isn't it? It's pretty dark." he rambled.

The tunnel led them along a long and _very_ dark path, winding through the stone far below the sunlight, yet sloping slowly upwards. The travelers were now growing constantly more weary, save the mechanical Tinman.

"How did Jock get through the iron door, I wonder?" Xephos wondered aloud as the tunnel took a sharp left.

"Magic." Honeydew replied. "You ought to know that if you can't make sense of something in this land, magic is the likely culprit."

"I suppose."

"Oh?!" Honeydew said suddenly, stopping quickly.

"What is it?" asked Xephos.

"There's a sign here." Honeydew moved a step further down the tunnel so Xephos could see the marks on the wall.

"_You know what this means." _Xephos read.

"And there's some kind of fabric down here." Honeydew said, reaching below the words to a thick sheaf of fabric jutted from a hole the wall. He tugged at it, but the material was stuck fast. "Know what what means?" asked Honeydew.

"What's this over here?" asked Xephos, looking over Honeydew's shoulder to where the tunnel opened into a room.

"Hmm..." Honeydew said, walking towards the entry. "There's nothing in here."

The tunnel emerged into the corner of a large rectangular room with a low ceiling and no other features.

"It's just a big rectangular room." Xephos said as he and Tinman stepped out next to Honeydew as he held his torch aloft to shed as much light as possible across the room.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Honeydew, as he lowered the torch and stepped forwards. "And what did the sign mean?"

"Uh...Honeydew..." Xephos said, looking at the ceiling. "We should probably get out of here..."

"What?" Honeydew turned back to his friends, and as he turned he saw that the flame from his torch had caught on the ceiling, which seemed to be made of a lattice-work of fabric, and as he watched the fire began to spread and the ceiling fall apart, a trickle of sand growing more constant as the ceiling continued to burn. "Oh my gods..."

"I think that we should probably evacuate," Xephos said as the sand continued to fall.

"Oh my gods. Oh my gods!" Honeydew yelled as there came a ripping noise from the ceiling. The dwarf ran around the growing column of sand.

"Quick! Back into the tunnel!" Xephos yelled as he and Honeydew ran over to the tunnel exit where Tinman had wisely stayed.

They barely made it into the tunnel when the fabric ceiling ripped open and a huge gout of sand flooded into the room, stopping just short of the tunnel as more fell behind it, building up a huge ramp of sand in the huge room to whatever lay above it.

"It looks like this entrance area is safe," Xephos said, as the sand ramp continued to build. He stepped out of the tunnel and looked to the roof, where the fabric had burned away leaving only a rock ceiling that continued to slope upwards with the ramp, as to not reveal what lay above.

"Careful," Honeydew warned as they began to walk up the steadily sloping hill of loose sand.

"Some of this sand is still falling into place." Xephos said as he leaned against a wall of logs to avoid a sand slip. The logs had fallen into place along with the sand, dividing half of the room, presumably where the stairs would double-back to climb higher.

"I hope this place leads to somewhere." Xephos grunted as they slogged on.

The going was tough, as the sand was loose and prone to slips. Tinman was the only one who seemed to not tire, surging ahead as Xephos and Honeydew trudged through the sand. As they reached the point in the sand ramp where it doubled back on itself the two were forced to rest while Tinman stood patiently while they recovered. After a few long minutes they got to their feet and continued forth, egged on by the sight of light at the top of the stairs in the distance.

"Let's get the heck outta here." Honeydew said as they neared the top. "Let's get the flock outta here, Xephos."

"Yeah," Xephos panted. "I am sick of this damned tomb. How long have we been down here, anyway?"

"Hours? Days?" Honeydew guessed. "I dunno, after so many sleepless nights in succession my body-clock is broken."

"At least there's light up there, though. Sunlight! Precious sunlight!"

"_Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh..."_ Honeydew warbled in joy at the light.

As the light drew nearer the walls either side and above them turned to ancient carved sandstone, possibly centuries old hidden in the sand.

"I'll bet Professor Grizwold would've liked to see these." Honeydew said.

"How would you know? Did you meet him?" Xephos asked sarcastically. "What happened to that old digger anyway?"

"Dunno, he just disappeared one day years ago."

As they got nearer the top the sand suddenly turned to sandstone stairs, slowly leading to the surface.

"Where is this leading?" Xephos asked.

"Up, I guess?" Honeydew said as he began to walk up the stairway.

"Up and out." Xephos sighed as he and Tinman followed.

Xephos ran up the rest of the stairs, emerging out of the dark first, shortly followed by Honeydew and Tinman.

Xephos let out a loud thankful sigh as he turned fully around to analyse the area.

They'd exited at the foot of a huge, thick, square sandstone arch covered in fantastical hieroglyphs, mounted on many huge sandstone flagstones at the summit of a small hill on the very fringes of a small desert, but not The Sands. The sky above them was clear, without a single clod, yet from the west behind the arch storm clouds gathered.

"Where on earth are we?" asked Xephos.

"We might be in a desert. That would explain all of the sand." Honeydew offered, glad to be in the open again.

Xephos laughed as he walked beneath the low culvert of the arch to the other side, where a small flight of stairs led down to a cracked sandstone path that ran off into a small forest just beyond the dunes only two-hundred yards distant. And beyond those trees Xephos spied the top half of another sandstone building, with pillars and a rounded roof like a temple, heavy black clouds hanging above, brooding with the occasional rumble of thunder.

"There's something over there." Xephos said, pointing over at the building far distant. Honeydew walked over to his right and looked off at it too.

"I guess that's where the road leads." Honeydew guessed.

"Hmm..." Xephos turned to his right where a nearby dune rose out of the sand at the very edge of the desert. As Xephos looked past the dune, he felt his heart stop. From atop the highest crest of the small dune a face white as bleached bone stared back with blood-red eyes.

Xephos stepped backwards as Israphel turned and disappeared behind the dune, his pace calm, sure, and unnerving.

"Did you see that!?" Xephos yelled, grabbing at Honeydew as he continued to stare at where Israphel had stood moments before. "Israphel's over there!"

"What..?" Honeydew said, confused. "Where!?"

"Over there behind that fucking sand dune!" Xephos pointed, hand going to his sword hilt. "Fucking hell, that scared the shit out of me! Oh gods..."

There then came a rumble of thunder as the bank of thunderheads moved closer, a thick bank covered the sun leaving them in the shadow of the clouds.

"Where?" Honeydew asked, scanning the hill. "I can't see him! Where is he? Are you sure? I can't see him anywhere." he babbled.

Xephos strung his bow. _"Honeydew..."_ he sighed. "I think we need to go hunt him before he can get too far." he walked up to where Honeydew stood on the edge of the sandstone platform nearer the sand-hill. He pointed to the apex of the dune. "He was right there-" he began before as he spoke from over the dune he saw Israphel clothed in black smoke fly off into the air before disappearing form view.

"There!" Xephos yelled as he vanished. "There, there, there!" he pointed.

"What!?" Honeydew asked.

"Over there!" Xephos yelled. "Did you not see!?"

"Are you seeing things?" asked Honeydew earnestly. "It's the pressure of being underground too long."

The sky had now become darker, and with a flash of light and a clap of thunder, a heavy sheet of rain descended into the desert.

"Oh fuck..." Honeydew swore.

Xephos stepped off the edge of the paving stones and headed up the dune. "Come on!" he called back. "We need to get after him!"

Honeydew and Tinman hurried after Xephos as he reached the top of the dune, offering him a better view of their surroundings.

"I think he probably caused this rainstorm." Xephos said as Honeydew and Tinman, looking sleek in the heavy rain that had already saturated the other two, reached the top of the hill. "It's probably to shake us off- Oh my gods, what is that over there?" Xephos pointed over to where the desert gave way to grasslands and hills, where in the dark they could see standing behind the hills a huge dragon.

The beast had it's head reared into the storm, back arched and wings out-stretched, tail still as it curved through the air. From the dragon's horned poured a gout of liquid fire, which it drooled down it's jaw onto the ground. It stood perfectly still, and by the light of the lava streaming from his jaws the heroes watched him, eternally frozen in his stone embrace.

"Is that a giant stone dragon?" asked Honeydew, strangely calm.

"I think so." Xephos stared at it as the dragon's frozen gaze peered away from them out over the land.

"Oh...my...gods..." Honeydew said. "Okay, okay. We're going over to the dragon, Xephos." Honeydew set off at a run down the dunes towards the hills where the colossal statue leered. "We're going over to the dragon right now. I don't care about no map fragments, balls to that. I'm checking out this dragon."

Xephos and Tinman followed him as they left the desert behind and ran through a hollow of grass where between two crests at the top the dragon's head could just be seen in the distance.

"Is this where Israphel went?" asked Xephos as the ran for the top of the gully.

Honeydew only grunted in reply, as they reached the top and set to climbing the left hill to get a better look at the petrified dragon.

"Oh my gods...what the hell is this?" Honeydew said at the summit of hill ending in a sheer cliff. They stared out at the huge stone dragon as the storm continued to rage, the rain poured, the wind howled, the sky darkened, and the sea on the bay where the dragon stood roiled and writhed in anger under the dragon's gaze.

"What is going on with this weather as well?" asked Xephos over the wind and rain as he stared at the dragon, standing in a pool of liquid fire pouring from it's mouth, hissing as the rain hit it's surface. "The world is ending! What's happening?!"

"I don't know! I'm scared!" Honeydew yelled.

There came a sudden flash of light as from the roof of the world a lightening bolt shot down white hot like a spear, striking the dragon's arched back, blackening his stone flesh.

"Woah!" Honeydew yelled, looking at Xephos and the ever silent Tinman and then back at the Petrified Dragon. "Did you see that?"

"Fucking heck, we need to get into shelter!" Xephos yelled to Honeydew. "We're wearing metal in a lightening storm! And Tinman's made of the stuff!" Xephos looked west where he saw the temple building he'd seen from the arch standing at the end of a long sandstone pier stemming from the bay as it curved around the land. "There's a building over there where we can take shelter form the storm! I think we should go there!"

"Yeah, wearing metal in a thunderstorm maybe isn't the cleverest idea." Honeydew admitted. "How are we going to get down?" he asked.

Xephos carefully looked over the edge of the cliff they stood on as another bolt of lightening shot down from the heavens. Below there was a large pool of water that in the darkness seemed deep enough to catch them safely. But it would still be a gamble.

"There's a pool down there, we may be able to land in it!" Xephos yelled, stepping closer to the edge.

"Are you sure about his!?" Honeydew asked over the storm as Xephos stood on the edge of the hundred yard drop.

"Nope!" Xephos said as he leapt out over the void. He plummeted downwards, and for a brief moment he maintained the same speed as the rain, surrounding him with several tiny stars, alight with the lava's glow. Seconds later Xephos splashed almightily into the pool of cold water. He felt the weight of his armour dragging him down into the water's cold presence, and kicked out, finding the ground, and kicking out, pushing his way to the surface. He reached out and grabbed at the side of the pond, grasping the reeds as he pulled himself onto the bank while with a deep yell, Honeydew the Dwarf crashed into the water. Xephos helped pull him out once he'd surfaced, then looked above to await Tinman.

"He's not coming," Honeydew gasped.

"What!?" asked Xephos.

"I don't think he want's to jump into the water. He's made of metal after all! I saw him heading back down the hill, I think he's gonna meet us at the shelter."

"Alright, let's get going!" Xephos said, helping Honeydew up. "Monsters will be coming out soon. We need to head for cover! Quick!"

"Right behind you!"

They followed the current of a small stream flowing from the pool they'd landed in, leading them to the shingled coast where white crested wave smashed onto the pebbles, scattering onto it pieces of debris and slimy sea-weed.

Xephos led the way closer to the strange building, along the foamy shore while the heavens opened into more rain.

"There's stuff spawning in this rainstorm, friend!" he called back to Honeydew as he stabbed a spider that had leapt towards him from the grass.

"Okay, just keep going, go for cover, go for cover! Keep moving."

They came alongside the building one hundred yards out to sea, the pier leading to it further down the coast as the bay turned ninety degrees in a quarter circle. Xephos started into the water, which was much calmer, suggesting that it was shallower. This proved to be so, and as they waded through the curtains of rain to the sandstone domed building.

"What the hell is this place?" asked Xephos as he and Honeydew behind him approached the entrance to the building where the pier met it. They sluggishly entered the building, dripping rain and seawater all over the floor. The entire establishment seemed to be made from the same sandstone that the arch above Grimjaw's treasure hold had been crafted from, with similar hieroglyphs adorning the walls inside and out. Within the cylindrical room there stood in the center a monument, a fountain with water flowing from shelves on it's four sides into a huge basin set into the ground.

"What is this?" asked Xephos again.

"It's like a temple," Honeydew looked at the huge fountain where set into the to two large hunks of glowstone illuminated the room.

"oh gods, Honeydew, what's this?" Xephos said.

Honeydew looked to his left where his friend stood next to a long wooden box at the foot of a set of double-back stairs by the left wall.

"It's something weird." Xephos said as Honeydew walked over. He looked down at the box and realised that it was indeed a hastily made coffin, with the name Prof. Grizwold carved into the face.

"_Professor Grizwold?"_ Honeydew yelled at the sight of the explorer's coffin. _"What?!"_

"So _this _is what happened to him." Xephos watched as Honeydew drew his sword and began prying the lid off of the box. "Eeugh..." Xephos recoiled as the lid hit the sandstone floor, exposing inside the decades old bones of the famous Professor Grizwold; disappeared after a mysterious expedition to the wonders of the earth. "It's just his bones..."

"There's a book though, Xephos." Honeydew said, reaching into the coffin where resting against the browned bones of Grizwold a small leather-bound book rested. Honeydew pulled the dusty book from the coffin and blew the dust from it.

"What the hell is this place?" Xephos asked as he turned to the stairs which he began to ascend to the next floor. "I wonder who made the coffin for Grizwold?" he asked Honeydew who followed after him once he'd returned the lid to Grizwold's coffin.

"I don't know, but this book looks like it may be his journal or something..." Honeydew said as he tried to open it, only to find that the years had fused the clasp shut.

Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as they reached the next floor of the temple, a room the size of the one below, totally bare save a hole above where the entrance was, likely caused by a creeper. There were no real walls, only struts that held the domed roof up, exposing them to the cold sea wind.

"Oh my gods..." Xephos walked over to the edge of the room and stared out towards the Petrified Dragon, standing defiantly against the storm, illuminated briefly by another flash of lightening. But that was not the only source of light. "What the hell is all of this stuff?" Xephos asked as Honeydew joined him staring out into the water where as the sea tossed back and forth in agony in became alight as a thousand different bioluminescence lit up the whitecaps blues and whites and pinks, causing the waves to dance frantically in the storm.

"Oh my gods," Honeydew breathed.

"What the hell is all of that stuff down there underneath the water?" Xephos asked.

"It's like glowing sea-life or something." Honeydew began when behind them there came a hiss.

They both instinctively jumped away from the creeper before it's explosion could take them, Honeydew jumped to the side, while Xephos was thrown by himself and the explosion out into the sea, which on the sea-facing side was thankfully deeper.

"Are you okay?" yelled Honeydew over the side of the now broken sandstone window.

"I'm-fine!" Xephos said, as he stood on his toes to keep his head above the waves, fighting his way closer to the edge of the temple where the ground was higher.

"Alrigh-OH SHIT!" Honeydew suddenly yelled as Xephos began moving along the circumference of the temple. "There's a whole bunch of creepers that appeared out of nowhere!" Honeydew's voice rang over the storm as his sword was pulled from it's scabbard.

"Oh gods!" Xephos yelled as he reached the pier, bow in hand as he heard a creeper explode on the level above. As he headed through the door a giant spider suddenly dropped from above the doorway to the floor in front of him. Xephos side-stepped the spider as it lunged at him, then began backing down the pier as it followed after him as he drew his bow and knocked an arrow into the string. He fired at it it the darkness and pierced the spider's abdomen, slowing, but not killing it. The arachnid continued to stalk him down between the many sandstone arches the lined the long pier like the ribcage of a snake. As Xephos went to load another arrow his fingers slipped on the wet arrow in the rain, dropping it as the spider leapt at him. Whilst drawing another arrow, Xephos kicked the spider back, and as he reached the end of the pier he fired the arrow, the metal tip shining in the rain as it soared towards the spider in mid jump. But as it hit there came an enormous crashing noise and a blinding white flash as a jagged pillar of lightening was drawn to the arrow's metal tip, smashing down on the spider with the fury of the storm, charring a crater through it's thorax.

"Gods!" Xephos swore as he at the dead spider, and then worriedly at the sky. He began to walk toward the Temple he stopped as he saw that nailed to the left side of the first arch on the pier there was nailed a wooden sign, barely recognisible in the dark, but as Xephos peered at the sign he saw that written on it were the words:

_DO NOT ENTER_

_By order of_

_Verigan Antioch_

"Oh shit." Xephos said, shouldering his bow, running for the Temple, noticing another sign on an arch which he saw read:

_I SAID_

_DO NOT ENTER_

_Turn back now!_

Xephos entered the Temple panting and sopping wet, looking about for Honeydew.

"Honeydew!" he called. "We should leave here, there are signs written by Verigan warning people from entering."

"Yeah, I've also found a sign." came Honeydew's reply from behind the fountain. Xephos ran over to where his friend stood facing the fountain, which Xephos saw no water flowed from, in it's stead there stood a door of obsidian with another sign upon it.

"_The Tomb of the Dark Pharaoh Lehparsi," _Honeydew read.

"_Do not enter, quarantined area, off limits, no entry; Order of High Templar: Verigan Antioch"_ Xephos said. "Wow..."

"This is no Temple," Honeydew said lowly. "This is a tomb."

"Gods."

"I probably shouldn't use my pick on it then." Honeydew said, patting it his small diamond pickaxe.

"I don't think so," Xephos kicked the solid black doors. "Also, where the hell is Tinman? He should've been here by now."

"Oh gods, what if something happened to him?"

"Well, he managed himself when we left him before, so I think he'll probably be alright."

"I hope so." Honeydew groaned.

"Well I think that we should leave." Xephos said. "Obviously this place is not safe. You said several creepers fell on you or something."

"Yeah! I swear I had to fight off like...fifty of 'em," Honeydew said, walking around the left side of the fountain to leave. "Oh my gods. Xephos, _Xephos."_ Honeydew said urgently as rounded the corner. Xephos followed after him to find that traipsing through the entrance were a small horde of ancient zombies, their skin grey and sallow, half rotted off leaving them as more bones than flesh.

"Fuck, zombies." Xephos swore, loading an arrow into his bow.

"I know, they're very scary lookin'" Honeydew said as Xephos shot one of the approaching undead through the skull, then drawing another arrow.

Honeydew drew his sword and cut down the nearest, ducking below the skeletal claw of the next zombie before slashing upwards, nearly cleaving the brute in two from it's groin upwards.

"They are scary, aren't they?" Xephos said as he shot down one of the last before Honeydew whirled in like a twister of blades, hacking apart the last two. "Do you think that they are from, like, Grizwold's day?" asked Xephos.

"They certainly look old enough, some didn't even have arms." Honeydew said. "are there anymore on the other side?" he asked.

"I'll check," Xephos volunteered, running around the front of the fountain to check for any more enemies. He ran past the entry way, yet as he did so, from the hole in the ceiling dropped two more zombies, landing heavily in front of and behind him.

"Gods damn you!" Xephos said as he punched the one before him, and while drawing back his bowstring heavily elbowed the one behind in the face, sending it reeling backwards. Xephos now loosed the arrow into the zombie he'd punched, impaling it through the eye, then turning and drawing his sword. The blade torn through the archaic form of the long dead man easily, felling him in half with one sweep.

"I don't think they're going to stop." Xephos said as Honeydew came running to see what the commotion was. "I reckon we should break the obsidian door down. Let's go in there, we need somewhere safe, It can't be worse than here." he led the way back round to the tomb entrance.

"Are you sure we should do this?" Honeydew asked, walking up to the tomb doors with pick drawn. "Take refuge from all of these monsters in a tomb?"

"Well, actually now that I think on it," Xephos tugged on his goatee. "Verigan did warn us from coming in here, and we got attacked, and now he's warning us again. I think maybe we should listen to him." he nodded. "Yes, let's not do it. That's probably a terrible,terrible terrible idea. The signs are very ominous, and we'll just have to live with it."

"But-" Honeydew began.

"Nope, I've changed my mind." Xephos said.

Honeydew stepped away from the door.

"What if there's riches in there?" he asked as an arrow streaked past them into the wall.

"Skeletons." Xephos said, unsheathing his sword.

From around the opposite corner that the zombies had come there now stood a troop of brown-boned skeletons, all armed with bows and crossbows.

Xephos and Honeydew dived around the corned as the skeletons loosed a volley of projectiles at them. Once the assault ceased the two lunged from behind the corner to engage the skeletons in melee.

"Gods, there's loads of them!" Honeydew noted as he cracked apart their skulls with his pickaxe. "Why are there so many mobs?!"

"There must be some kind of magic spawning them!" Xephos kicked one skeleton back into another taking aim at Honeydew before striking both of their heads off.

"At least I can gather a few bolts now." Honeydew said as he grabbed the last skeleton by the skull and head-butted it, breaking it's head, then stooping to gather a few scattered bolts on the floor for his parched crossbow.

"Gods, when is it going to be morning?" asked Xephos as he listened to the sound of the rain on the roof and the thunder coursing through the sky. "This is not a very enjoyable evening, Honeydew. I'm not having a good time."

"You don't often spend your evenings in temples with ominously sealed tombs, with the undead raining down from the sky?" Honeydew laughed, his hearty voice carrying out into the stormy night.

_Authour's Notes:_

_Good morning, evening, and afternoon, readers._

_Well, this one is later than most of the others mainly because I rewrote the vast majority of it, as those of you who follow me on twitter would know. I think that I managed to make the whole thing a lot better than the original draft :)_

_Follow on Twitter for updates on the story:_

_ /OJvanderBeek_

_And the Official Thread on Yogscast Forums:_

_ . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread-(o-j-van-der-beek)_


	23. The Shadow Of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter23

Chapter 23: Evidence.

"Why are all of these zombies spawning?" asked Xephos as he smote one that dropped through a gap in the ceiling.

"It's dark up there, they like the dark." Honeydew answered from the doorway to the tomb, cold rain lashing onto him as he looked down the pier to the tree line on the coast, searching for any sign of dawn in the inky dark.

"It's not _that_ dark." Xephos said, kicking the zombie into the fountain surrounding the entrance to Lehparsi's sepulcher.

"What do you mean: "it's not that dark"?" Honeydew said in annoyance, turning from the cruel rain. "Are you kidding me? It's pitch bloody black out there, lad! Pitch bloody black!"

"Gah, I don't want to be here anymore, I think we should perhaps brave the outdoors." Xephos crossed over to the sandstone doorway as another thunderbolt smashed into the horizon. "We should follow that road that we saw from the exit of Grimjaw's booty hold. I mean, Tinman's bloody left us."

"That's true, what happened to him?"

"I don't know where he's gone. Did he follow that road?"

Honeydew stepped outside, shielding his eyes from the rain, looked over towards the road parallel to the pier they stood on as the coast curved about.

"There's an awful lot of creepers out there." Honeydew reported.

Thunder shook the early morning once more as the ocean storm decreased, going from abismal to torrential.

"Wait!" Honeydew called as he looked once more to the tree line in the lessened rain. "The sun is rising!" the called joyfully, pointing over the dark shadows of the treetops to the growing purple of the dawn, followed by another thunder strike to remind the world that the storm still raged.

"Well, where should we head?" asked Xephos as they headed cautiously down the pier, watching for hostile creatures.

"Well, look, Xephos." Honeydew said. "I've got this book of Grizwolds, I tired to open it up, but the pages were glued together,"

"Right?"

"I was able to open it up, and inside there was a sort of cubbyhole cut into the pages, and inside _that,_ there was this!" Honeydew looked back at Xephos, waggling a small steel hip-flask. "A small bottle of whiskey. Probably been in there for years."

"I hope you're planning on sharing that." Xephos made a grab at the flask, but Honeydew pulled it away.

"I think that we should preserve this for a situation where we may need a pick-me-up." he suggested. "I mean, this is probably been in that coffin for a hundred years, and another few hundred before if this was some of Grizwold's best stuff."

"Alright." Xephos said, already soaked to the core as he shivered off a blast of cold sea wind. "So the diary of Professor Grizwold, possibly containing information on his death and last expedition, was a whiskey cubby?"

Honeydew smiled and laughed as they reached the end of the pier.

"So what are we going to do about this place?" asked Xephos, casting about searching for any hostile creatures in the gloom.

"Well," Honeydew said. "My dwarven instincts are telling me to just crack open that tomb, dive inside and just rob it of all of it's treasure." he stroked his firey beard. "However, my common sense is telling me that there is no fucking way that I am going near that thing. It's gonna be full of horrible things that want to kill me and eat my eyeballs. I've got the feeling that we're not supposed to be here."

"You may have a point." Xephos said, looking back over to where the top of the exit from Grimjaw's Treasure Hold could just be seen in the dark over the trees. "I think that we should head over to there," he pointed to the thick sandstone arch. "and see if we can find the road that we saw leading away from there. I get the feeling it will take us in the right direction."

"Alright..." Honeydew agreed as the two followed the curve of the coast towards the treeline that seperated the shore from the desert.

They reached the grove of tall wispy trees, their roots soaking up every godsent drop of rain hitting the parched sandy soil. The two pushed on into the small forest, ducking under vines and avoiding cacti.

"How much longer, do you reckon?" Asked Honeydew from behind Xephos and they passed by a ridge.

"Not far, this grove can't be too thick-"

"Xephos!" Honeydew said as a creeper, perfectly blended into the sparse undergrowth dropped between them. Honeydew jumped backwards as the explosion sent Xephos stumbling ahead to his hands and knees.

"Are you alright?" asked Honeydew, running over to his friend

"Shit, was that a creeper?" Xephos asked, getting to his feet, as he did so, his steel armor from Verigan's Hold, shattered by the creeper's explosion, fell off of his body and landed at his feet. "Ow." he said, rubbing his back where the warping of the steel had bruised him. "Well, it did it's job well enough." Honeydew sighed.

"Yeah, I think I'll see if I can find something a little lighter next time, so I don't need to avoid water."

"This bloody weather is keeping the mobs from seeking cover, this place is so dangerous." Honeydew commented as they continued through the brush.

"Here!" yelled Xephos, quickening his pace. "Here, here, here! It's the path, look!" he led Honeydew out of the trees and onto an overgrown sandstone path, tall spindly trees growing either side of it, their roots growing across the dirty tan of the trail.

"That must be the way back to the exit," Xephos pointed to the left where the trial curved towards the desert.

"Ah." Honeydew exclaimed, looking down the right of the path where it disappeared into the undergrowth.

"This must be the way back, then." Xephos said, starting down the long road. "Along this sandstone road."

Honeydew matched his pace, and soon began to sing:

_Follow the sandstone road,_

_Follow the sandstone road,_

_Follow, follow, follow, follow,_

_Follow the sandstone road!_

"Gods," Xephos sighed as the path crossed a small stream on the third verse.

"What?!" Honeydew asked indignantly.

"_Diggy diggy hole_ was bad enough, but what the hell was that?!"

"I made it up." Honeydew replied reproachfully, staring at Xephos as he sniggered. "You laugh, but someday that song will be the theme of our great adventure. People the world over will know of it."

"Not unless the scholar writing of our quest makes an extra point of it." Xephos grinned.

"I'll make sure that he does." Honeydew grumbled. "I'll get the best scholar in the land."

They continued in silence for a long while, until, ubruptly, the path ended.

"Where are we supposed to go now?" asked Honeydew.

"Wait, be quiet a second." Xephos said, holding his hand in the air.

They both fell silent and for a few minutes only the sound of birds and rain in the trees filled their minds, until something else could be heard, faintly.

"Waves." Honeydew pointed ahead of the path.

The two didn't need to push far through the forest before ahead of them between the trees they could see the rolling waves of the sea.

"Well where are we now?" asked Honeydew, craning his shaggy head to the heavens. "What now!?" he yelled as if expecting an answer.

And, surprisingly, one came.

For the first time in hours a ray of sunlight pierced the clouds, beaming down onto Honeydew, standing gobsmacked as the cloud bank split in two, sending a row of light down the right of the shore to a ratty old wharf a hundred yards from them.

The clouds then pulled back completely, casting a bright sunlight over the blue sea they stood before, lighting up the rain soaked forest behind them.

Both of the adventurers were silent for a long while, before Honeydew shouted back up to the sky.

"Well that was a long time coming!" he yelled.

"Honeydew!" Xephos hissed in fear of a bolt of Notch-sent lightening striking his friend.

"Oh," he grinned. "And thanks too, I guess..." he called to the skies as well.

"Right..." Xephos stuttered, glancing above, remembering the time weeks ago when he'd drowned in the moat outside Mistral City, and the great shining gates he'd thought he'd seen before Honeydew revived him. "I think that we should head over to the wharf, it seems that...uh..._He_ wants us to head there."

"Okay." Honeydew agreed, following Xephos down the shore. "The Big Man smiles on us, then?"

"Don't jinx it." Xephos said.

"Well look who's suddenly very pious." the dwarf raised his eyebrows as he wrung the rainwater from his hair and beard.

"I'm just...experiencing some open-mindedness."

Honeydew shrugged.

"So long as you don't run off halfway through our adventure to join the Monks of Jeb-us Christ." he said.

Xephos laughed. "Don't you worry about that."

They now reached the small wharf, a rather rickety looking structure made from the slender trees of the forest behind them. On one of the posts mounting the wharf to the shore there was a sign nailed, and in faded writing there were the words:

_Cutter's_

_Quay_

"There are some boats here, Xephos." Honeydew spoke from the end of the wharf, where four boats, rear identical to the ones they'd departed Barbeque Bay on, and each a good deal younger than the wharf to which they were tethered.

"Do you suppose someone came through here?" asked Xephos.

"I dunno." Honeydew scratched his head beneath his horned helm. "Where do we go then?" he asked as Xephos walked over to the end of the wharf, peering along the coast, looking for any sign of habitation.

"Hold on..." Xephos said, shading his eyes as he spotted something on the horizon. "Is that a ruined ship over there?" he asked Honeydew, pointing down the great curved coast to to where he could faintly see near a far distant shore a wooden structure jutting out of the sea.

"Oh my gods, is that Barbeque bay over there?" Honeydew said.

"Oh, you're probably right!" Xephos stared closer. "Hooray."

"Oh please let it be Barbeque Bay." Honeydew rested himself into one of the small boats, pulling out the paddle and setting off as Xephos got into his small boat. The two fought the boats out over the waves until the water became flat and glassy, only broken by the steady strokes of their paddles as they slowly edged closer to the structure.

As the minutes turned to hours they long realised that it was indeed Barbeque Bay, the huge platform had been undergoing more repairs since Grimjaw's assault, the beam that had been so painstakingly brought into place by Xephos, Honeydew, Spacker and the pirates was in the process of being bolstered as many minor repairs took place.

"_Barbeque Baaaaaaaaaay..."_ Honeydew sang as they began to weave between some of the many ships anchored around the bay.

"Oh gods," Xephos said, arms aching from paddling. "it looks like Isabel's ship's in port, Honeydew." he pointed to where two nights ago Grimjaw's ship had been set afire, but now the lithe black sailed ship; The Black Pimple sat apart from the other ships.

"Oh!" Honeydew glanced over to it as they neared the Bay. "Oh.. She's probably not going to be happy we lost Tinman. Wasn't he, like..."

"Important to her?"

"Yeah..."

"Probably."

They reached the bay and abandoned their boats, heaving themselves onto the platform with burning shoulders from the long boat trip.

"It's good to be back in Barbeque Bay." Honeydew said, standing up.

"We have. We've been away too long." Xephos stretched a kink out of his back "Wait," he said, looking about the huge two tiered wooden scaffold. "Where is everyone?"

"What?"

"There were, like hundreds of pirates here last time." Xephos continued to scan the Bay for any people.

Turning towards the strut that he'd risked his neck to to install days ago he then finally saw someone. An old man hanging over the side of the top level near the new strut by a rope harness nailing in place several boards to help strengthen the brace.

"Hello?" Xephos called up to the aged pirate.

The old man looked down.

"What d' you want?" he asked.

"Where is everyone?" Xephos yelled up to him.

"Wait a secon'" the man said before tugging on a catch in his harness, lowering him at an alarming speed before stopping feet above the ground where Xephos and Honeydew stood.

"Ah recognise you lot," the old pirate said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his faded blue coat. "You's the one's who put up this pole in th' first place, th' ones who saved the bay,"

"That's right!" Honeydew beamed.

"You 'ave me thanks for that." the pirate doffed floppy hat. "Now wha' can ah do fer you?"

"Where is everyone?" asked Xephos.

"Oh..." the old man's face turned from kindly to grim. "They be up in th' galley," he pointed towards a large flight of stairs at the other end of the platform next to a building. "It's 'cause _She's_ here. Th' Dread Pirate Norris. Came by a little earlier askin' for an audience with Jock an' Angus. Jock's tied up wit' somethin' in his ship, so only Angus was able to come. They went into th' galley with the entire bay behind 'em." he shook his head. "If she's 'ere, it can't bode well."

"Right, thanks." Xephos said turning and heading to the stairs that the builder had pointed out, Honeydew following close.

As they got further up the stairs the sound of many angry voices grew louder.

"The pirates are certainly chatting away." Xephos said.

"Oh gods, I hope Isabel's alright." Honeydew admitted in a worried tone.

They reached the top of the stairs, landing on a hanging walkway just beneath the second level leading to to another set of stairs that disappeared into the next floor.

"Uh..." Xephos said as reached the hanging walkway.

"What?" Honeydew asked, coming up behind him.

"Tinman's here."

"What-" Honeydew looked past Xephos and saw him standing in the middle of the walkway. "He's always one step ahead of us, isn't he?" he sighed as the war-forged paced over to them , looking almost happy to see the two of them. "Always..."

"I think that he's excited to see us." Xephos said as the metal man pointed over to the stairs leading to the next floor with his passive expression. They hurriedly walked over to the set of stairs with Tinman leading.

They entered a large room much like a smaller wooden great hall of a castle, packed tight with pirates all talking loudly to each other.

"Oh shit, where's Isabel?" Honeydew asked craning his neck to try and see over the crowd they were stuck behind.

"I don't know," Xephos replied. "I can't see anything either-"

"By rightsh, tish mine and Jock'sh tae claim!" came an angry outburst from undoubtably Angus Eyeless somewhere in the center of the room. All of the pirates now grew silent at his enraged shout.

"And yet, I am the only one able to salvage it." came Isabel Peculier's cool reply. "That is, if my metal first mate ever returns."

"What are they talking about?" asked Honeydew, whispering to Xephos. "Treasure? I think it's about the treasure."

"Grimjaw's Booty." Xephos hissed back. "But it wasn't there, Jock took it."

"That automation ish a soullessh terror!" Angus slurred. "He shud be melted down!"

There was a grumble of agreement among the pirates, who hadn't yet noticed Tinman behind them, who despite being a "soulless terror" still managed to look angered by Angus' words.

"Quiet! Or I'll cut your gizzard out!" Isabel replied, there was the faint snick of a blade being drawn, followed by yells from the pirate crews as they reached for their weapons.

"Oi, shettle down!" Angus yelled. The pirates grudgingly calmed and so too did Honeydew and Xephos, who were ready to run in and hack their way over to Isabel at the first draw of blood.

"Maybae we shud chop off yer leg tae learn ye some manners." Angus growled.

"A peg-leg? With these boots? Angus, come now." Isabel replied nonchalantly.

"We need to get through to her." Honeydew urged Xephos.

"I agree to that, but how?" Xephos whispered back.

Overhearing them, one of the pirates turned to them, only to see Tinman standing with them.

"I'll tell you one thing-" Isabel began.

"The War-forged!" the pirate, no more than a boy yelled, pointing.

The entire room now turned to face them and at the sight of Tinman attempted to back away. Seeing an opertunity, Tinman began to walk forwards, the room already packed tight parted enough for Tinman, Honeydew and Xephos as they appraoched the middle of the galley where at the two main tables had been pushed up against the walls to make room for a small round table where Isabel Peculier, Angus Eyeless and Spacker LeChuck sat.

"Ah, mate Tinman!" Isabel exclaimed, taking her feet off of the table and putting away the small stiletto knife she was toting.

"Ye brought it here?!" Angus said, staring blindly in Isabel's general direction.

Tinman walked up to Isabel at the table, and extended his arm over it there was click sound as a slot in Tinman's hand opened, and slowly at first then more quickly stream of yellow golden coins began to drop onto the table until a sizeable pile grew.

"...where did he get all of that treasure..?" Xephos asked, breaking the stunned silence in the room.

"Haha! The Booty!" Isabel cried, kissing Tinman on the forehead. "Right from under their noses?! Well done!"

"...this is Grimjaw's treasure!" Honeydew spoke up. "Hold on a minute..."

"I though Jock had the treasure?" Xephos whispered.

"Tinman stole the treasure!" Honeydew yelled.

"Well..." Xephos sighed.

"Oh my gods...We've been tricked! We've been bamboozled!" Honeydew grumbled.

The gathering of pirates growled at this development, eyeing Isabel and Tinman.

"I though that Jock was the bad guy?" Xephos whispered to Honeydew as the pirates began talking while Tinman sucked the mountain of coins back inside his hand.

"He's tricked us." Honeydew stared at the two. "She's thanking _Tinman."_

"I guess it doesn't matter though, we don't _need_ the treasure, we just want the map." Xephos said, stepping forward and clearing his throat.

Tinman turned to face them as Honeydew walked right up to the table.

"_What the heck?!"_ he yelled.

Isabel looked up at the fuming dwarf.

"Tinman," she said. "Give the dwarf the map fragment and we can be away."

"Isabel..." Honeydew now said n a low tone. "I thought we had something-"

"**01001110 01101111 01110100"**

"What?" Isabel said, staring at Tinman. "Jock?"

"She can understand him?" Xephos hissed to Honeydew as the pirates yelled in outrage at the black magic they saw before them.

"No! Jock took it?" Isabel said, turning to Angus.

"Nae, it cannae be true! Yer lyin'!" the blind captain insisted, turning about as though looking for Jock. "Leave ush!" he commanded to the crews, who drearily left the galley back down to the main deck. "Now what ish thish that ye be talkin' 'bout, then?" he asked once the last of the crew had exited the building.

"Tinman thinks that Jock took the map." Isabel said steadfastly. "And I believe him."

"We can both vouch for him." Xephos spoke out.

"We saw him do it." Honeydew admitted.

"Jock is an old friend, despite our rivalry..." Isabel said thoughtfully. "We can't know for sure if he's been corrupted. He may have just stumbled upon the treasure, so we must find evidence." she looked up. "He may have hidden the map up here, so Tinman and I shall search the Bay, Spacker and Angus, you should search the other ship." Angus grumbled something about taking orders from women before getting to his feet.

"Shpacker, to me shide! We need to get to tae Mozzie, on tae double!" he said. The undead dwarf helped the old blind captain out of the room to examine the ships.

"Now, you two must find Jock in his ship." Isabel declared to Xephos and Honeydew. "Distarct him and search for the map."

A brief silence followed Isabel's sudden taking of charge, in which Isabel stared at the two, as though sizing them up.

"_Which ship is Jock's?" _Xephos and Honeydew asked in the same moment, prompting them to glance at each other before concentrating on Isabel once more.

"Jock's ship operates at the sub level of the marine enviroment." Isabel informed them with a grin at their response. "Therefore we call it...an "Underwater Ship"." she mimed air-quotes around the word. "It is moored east of the bay."

"Right, let's be getting on with this, shall we?" Xephos huffed, growing impatient. "My goodness." he said heading for the exit of the galley, Honeydew in tow.

Isabel then called out as they reached the door.

"And heroes," she called, as Xephos laid his palm on the doorknob, he turned back to face Isabel with Honeydew.

"Be careful." she warned.

Xephos nodded as Honeydew thanked the lady pirate as he yanked open the door, leaping back hurriedly as a score of eavesdropping pirates who'd had ears pressed against the door fell into the galley with a cry of alarm. The two stepped over the fallen pirates and pushed through more eavesdroppers still standing on the stairway. Xephos pushed through a door to his right out onto the top platform of Barbeque Bay, which was very similar to the lower, small buildings scattered about the area, and strangely a small runty looking single masted ship lay in the center.

"That must be Jock's ship there." Xephos said, pointing over the eastern edge of the platform to where in the water far below a strange metal tube sprouted out from the water like the neck of a serpent, the strange rounded body of the rest of the ship just visible below the ultramarine waters.

"I don't think we should jump down there." Xephos peered over the railless cusp.

Honeydew looked at Xephos and grinned widely. Xephos looked back at him.

"Don't do it-" Xephos warned, but too late. Honeydew took a huge step and leapt off the edge of the high platform, with a faint whoop he plunged through the sunlight until he crashed into the water feet first holding his helmet in one hand.

"Godsdammit," Xephos breathed as Honeydew resurfaced, grin plastered across his face with his wet orange beard.

"Come on down!" Honeydew called up, treading water. "It's quicker!"

Ordinarily Xephos wouldn't have taken this advice because he would be wearing armour, yet due to the creeper in the forest a few hours ago, he had taken leave of the heavy plate. As the wood disappeared beneath his feet to be replaced with air, he windmilled his arms to keep himself steady, hitting the water hard, bringing his knees into his chest, briefly loosing track of where up was before following his stream of bubbles to the surface with breath to spare.

"Is there a way in there?" asked Xephos as Honeydew swam over to him as Xephos pointed at the tower that pertruded from the hull of Jock's strange ship.

"There looks like there's a ladder up to the top?" Honeydew squinted at the odd metal-plate tower rising about fifteen yards out of the water.

"Alright, ready your sword." Xephos suggested as he began to swim over to the underwater ship. "He won't want to give up the map easily."

It did not take them long to come before the ship's tower where the metal hull rose up to meet it only a foot below the water level. The two kept their hands near the pommels of their swords as they reached the base of the tower, it's girth wide enough for seven men to circumfrence if they held hands. Set into it's side was a ladder of iron bars, each rung coated in rust and dry as a bone.

"He mustn't have used the ship in a while, these rungs are all rusted, they must've been above water for weeks." Honeydew speculated as they climded.

Indeed, the entirety of the underwater ship's tower seemed to have pocks of rust covering it's gunmetal face.

"Well, this tower thing might have to stay above sea level, so that air can get inside." Xephos offered as Honeydew climbed onto the top. "I've never heard of any ship like this, have you, Honeydew?"

"Nope." the tall dwarf said as Xephos joined him at the summit. The slightly oval platform was barren save for a small manhole-hatch set into the center.

"How do we get in?" asked Xephos as Honeydew kelt over the hatch.

"I think we have to turn this wheel." Honeydew suggested, grasping the wheel atop the hatch and turning it. Unlike the rest of the tower the hatch and it's mechanism were well oiled, and it hardly gave a squeak or protest as it was pulled open.

"Let's go down, get your sword ready." Xephos warned Honeydew again. "I'm not sure that I trust him."

"Alright." Honeydew said, lowering himself into the hole and steadily climbing down the metal runged ladder followed by Xephos, the only light guiding their way steamed through the strip of foot-thick glass that ran down the front of the tower. Honeydew came to the base of the ladder and found him and Xephos in the hull of the underwater ship. The ladder descended right into the center of the ship, and opposite the ladder the entire front of the ship was a half dome of glass allowing the crew to see out into the clear water, where now small schools of fish swam through the clusters of kelp that swayed dreamily in the doclie current. The back half of the ship was dominated by the bridge: a mezzanine floor where the ship's wheel stood to the side and several levers nearby, the entire ship way adorned with large shelves filled with heavy tomes and scroll, that and the absence of a crew made the ship feel more like someone's quarters than a ship.

"Here he is!" Xephos cried suddenly as from beneath the mezzanine a door opened and Jock stepped out.

At the sight of the two he made to retreat back into the doorway, but not before Honeydew and Xephos drew their steel, holding it threateningly before them. Jock stepped back through the doorway, the imperious and intimidating captain was now but a memory, he now seemed scared, and smaller almost, even though he stood at least a head taller than either of them.

"Please heroes, don't harm me! You must listen!" he begged.

"What do you think Xephos?" Honeydew asked, not making even the slightest attempt to lower his voice. "He hasn't got a weapon out, he's being quite reasonable...What do you think? This could be a trap."

"That woman be evil! She not be called Dread Pirate for nothing!" Jock continued.

"What?" Honeydew exclaimed. "Isabel? Evil?"

"I don't know...I'm not sure anymore" Xephos suddenly said under his breath to Honeydew. "Jock was good to us before." he continued as Honeydew leaned in.

"Her metal shipmate probably stole the map and framed me!" Jock protested.

"Do you have any proof that Isabel is evil?" asked Honeydew harshly, making a feigned stab at Jock, who recoiled.

"Do ye have any proof that _I'm_ evil?" he asked, collecting himself slightly.

"That's why we're here." Xephos said. "And theoretically if you are innocent, then you should have nothing to hide, so you should have no problem showing us behind that door, there?" Xephos pointed with the tip of his blade at the door Jock had come out of.

Jock seemed at a loss for words at this, yet made no move to allow them passage.

"Yeah," Honeydew grinned slyly, taking a half step closer. "What's behind the door there, fella me lad? Hmmm..?" he added after Jock did not reply. "Whatch'a hidin'?"

"Down there just be hard tack an' bilgin' gear." Jock finally responed. "Nothin' of interest."

"I'm just getting more and more suspicious now." Xephos grimaced.

"But apparently, Xephos," Honeydew said in a very patronising voice. "There's nothing down there but: "Hard tack and bilging gear."."

"Do you mind if we take a look anyway?" Xephos growled to the big pirate.

"Arr...It-It's wet down there! Ye wouldn't like it!" stammered Jock.

"Okay, I'm fed up with this shit." Honeydew yelled, reaching up and cracking his gauntleted fist across Jock's face, sending him falling to the side and leaving the door wide open. "Quick Xephos!" Honeydew yelled jumping over Jock and through the doorway into a stone passage.

"Oi!" Jock spat as Xephos leapt over him while he spat up blood.

"Quick!" Honeydew called again as the ran through the cramped passage, followed it as it turned right sharply, ending in a small room with only one feature in it's center.

"Another hatch?" said Honeydew as Xephos stepped up beside him.

"Oh gods, a hatch here, but there's no room below here for another room." Xephos said as he set to opening the hatch, aware of the sound of Jock pulling himself to his feet down the passage. It opened as easily as the one topside, and as Xephos stared through the hatchway he way greeted with a huge hole descending into the earth, many times wider than the hatch itself. "Oh gods, a massive hole!" Xephos cried, pulling back from the throat of darkness. "A dark, terribly long hole!" he fished into his pockets and fished out the two small glowstone pebbles that he'd taken from their chest outside their Hell portal next to the Yogcave. He dropped them into the darkness and watched as traveled down into the blackness lighting the ladder's path to the floor far below.

"Right, let's see what's down here, then." Honeydew growled as he lowered himself onto the ladder and started down.

"Oh, what's this?" Jock said, coming out of the passage attempting to act confused as Xephos too started down the ladder. "I didn't know that this was here..."

"Jock's denying that he knew that this was here." Xephos said as he and Honeydew sped down the ladder as fast as they were able.

"What _is_ this?" asked Honeydew as the bottom drew closer.

"This is far too deep to be apart of the ship-" Xephos began as they reached the bottom of the ladder.

"Oh..." Honeydew groaned. They found themselves in a cavern beneath the waves, on a flat rock jutting out into a pool of water black as sin, the only light other than the now forgotten lightstone pebbles came from the other side of the cavern, where on a stony shore stood a massive obsidian obelisk, rectangular in shape with purple light seething inside it. The Nether Portal glared across at them, it's purple glow reflecting off the water surface like there was a shinning walkway across the water to them.

"Gods dammit." Xephos growled.

"...my gods." Honeydew finished. "There's a portal."

"He tricked us." Xephos snarled. "Right, let's kill him."

"Let's take care of him." Honeydew turned and started up the ladder. "Let's do him in, Xephos! Let's-"

"Uh...Honeydew?" Xephos said looking up top the top of the hole. Honeydew too glanced up as Jock's frowning face disappeared behind the closing hatch, and with a mechanical shift, valves on the walls opened and a thick glowing liquid that sizzled in the air began to drip into the hole.

"Ooooo..!" Honeydew cried dropping off the ladder and jumping back as a large drop hit the floor and hissed, dissolving at the rock floor. "Fuck!" Honeydew breathed as more spilled down. As Xephos glanced over to him standing at the edge of the water he saw then a ghostly white figure rise from the water behind his friend, bald and thin. Xephos found himself frozen, as the red eyes stared at him over his friend's shoulder before reaching out for him.

"Behind you!" Xephos managed. Honeydew looked over his shoulder as the creature made to grab him. Honeydew cried out, swinging his axe at it, ripping open it's gut, spilling entrails like worms as pale as the skin of the creature. Honeydew brought the axe back about and hacked across it's neck, leaving it hanging by a few threads of skin and tendon as the zombie fell into the water.

"Oh! Zombie!" Honeydew sighed. "I thought that was Israphel for a second."

"Me too." shivered Xephos. "He must have died down here, in the water, that's why his skin is white. I wonder where he came from..." Xephos looked up at Honeydew. "...was that a member of his crew..?"

Before Honeydew could answer there then came the sounds of splashes and ripples as something staggered into the dark water. Then another something. And another till there was a cocaphony of corpses falling into water from the sides of the cavern, surging towards the intruders.

"That'll be the rest of the crew." Honeydew gave a nervous giggles then turned and remembered the other danger as the sludge edged closer, forcing them closer to the edge.

"What do we do?" asked Xephos.

"Move forwards!" Honeydew yelled, splashing into the water up to his waist as Xephos followed, weapons drawn. "Go towards the portal!"

They soon deeper water and were forced to swim, Xephos went in front, the white skinned zombies, used to the darkness, stayed clear of his glowing sword, for now. As he kicked through the water he suddenly felt something trying to grab at his foot, he cried out, pulling away and glanced down, and by the light of his sword several white drowned face looked back, their feet tied to rocks holding them below the surface, arms grasping upwards and teeth gnashing, some of their faces more bone that snowy flesh staring up with blind white eyes. He recoiled with a yell of terror.

"What!?" Honeydew asked behind him.

Xephos looked over at his friend.

"Nothing." he said. "Just don't kick too deep on look down." he left it at that and they continued, the freed undead venturing closer to the glow of Xephos' sword.

"Are we just going to destroy this, portal?" asked Xephos as they came ever closer. "How are we going to get out then?"

"Oh gods, I don't know!" Honeydew said as they felt the rock beneath their feet, and waded towards the portal. "There's a load of zombies out there."

Xephos glanced back. He could just see them, pale whispers on the fringes of his sword-light, naked and hissing as they hung back in the water.

"I think that it might be safer in the portal." Honeydew laughed as they stepped onto the rock outcrop. Honeydew suddenly gave a cry, falling as a small group of pale wakers grabbed at his leg, trying to pull him into the water.

"Honeydew!" Xephos yelled, running forth with his sword in hand, slashing at them. The light seemed to harm them as much as the blade itself, their shrieks echoing through the cave as they staggered back clutching their eyes and wounds. "Back!" Xephos yelled, slashing at them as they headed into the black. "Back to the waters, fiends!" he helped Honeydew to his feet as they backed onto dry land, the portal sighing behind them.

"It probably _is_ safer in there." Honeydew looked about, axe in one hand and sword in the other."

"Oh gods," Xephos glanced back at the portal, the swirling purple rippling like a bed-sheet in the wind. "We could actually go into the portal. Couldn't we now? 'Cause I reckon Jock was just using it and didn't have time to seal it, or whatever."

"Oh my god." Honeydew froze in realisation.

"We could put an end to Israphel once and for all, Honeydew."

"We could kill 'im, we could rescue Daisy." Honeydew turned to Xephos. "We don't have to bother with this map nonsense."

"Well, normally we've just been destroying these things because we couldn't go through them, but this one...well...I assume that we can go through it."

"We can!"

"Is it a good idea though? That is the question."

"What do you think?" asked Honeydew looking at Xephos.

Xephos cringed his brow in thought. "I think-Zombie behind you!" he called suddenly.

Honeydew stepped aside quickly enough to only catch a glancing blow from the pale waker on his helm, knocking it askew. "Ah, you little shit head!" he yelled. "Come 'ere!" he slashed at the waker in a scissoring movement with his axe and sword, and kicking it back into the water, where there suddenly came a splashing as more made a brazen dash for the two.

"There's more of them!" Xephos yelled, cutting down one before it could reach him. "I think we may need to risk the portal!" he yelled as one tried to wrench his sword away from his hand, Xephos punched the pale waker in it's face, forcing it to let go before running it through.

"It may be safer." Honeydew replied, fighting off another waker only for two more to join it.

"Shit, alright let's go!" Xephos pushed off more wakers and turned to the portal, the light disturbing and infatuating him. He breifly froze for a half second as Honeydew dispatched of his attackers and turned to him. "What ever's in there, we can handle it."

"Fuck yeah we can!" the tall dwarf yelled, running through the purple light to disappear.

Xephos did not wait to see if it had worked, but ran after his friend, the wakers clawing after him as he was sucked into the light, ending his time in this world with no more than a whisper as the dark took him.

_Author's Notes:_

_I'm not even gonna bother with excuses for this being late, (again) so let's just say that events occur oft times to thwart me. Let me know if you want me to re-do bits on this one, some bits I didn't like._

_One another note, in this chapter we hit 300 pages, so let's mark the occasion with 100 reviews._

_~O.J _


	24. The Shadow Of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter24

Chapter 24: The Fiend.

To Xephos the experience of traveling through the portal was as surprising as it had been when it had done nothing at the Yogcave. The sensation was akin to stepping through a great face of water, miraculously composing itself as it stood turned on it's side. He found it almost pleasant and cooling, then he broke through the other side. He stepped heavily into Honeydew, stood on the stoop of the portal gazing awestruck about the enclosure in which they found themselves.

They were stood in a small room with walls, floor and roof encased in solid gunmetal iron, the only light was cast white from many bright lamps built into the walls and roof. The light reflecting off of the dull surfaces of numerous contraptions pushed up against the walls, impossibly intricate, with numerous levers, buttons and behind the glass panels on some danced bright green figures on fields of a darker shade of green, casting eerie light across the room. The two made awkward noises as they stood in the complex housing, unable to comprehend what they beheld.

Honeydew, as was his place, was the first to break the silence; "...I wasn't expecting-well, I'm not sure what it was that I was expecting-"

"Well _I_ was expecting _this."_ Xephos said, striding over to the left wall, taking only three steps to do so, which held the only relief from the contraptions in the form of a huge window, taking up nearly all of the wall. On the other side of the thick glass there expanded a red cave of desolation, wracked by the heat of the molten netherrack which poured from the red cavern walls into seas of lava on the floor, whilst from the unending ceiling there did droop stalactites of shining glowstone. It was indeed that beyond the glass that lay that was know to some of the old faith as The Nexus, to others it was a nightmarish place that was Hell itself, but to most it was simply known as The Nether.

"It's the Nether!" Honeydew breathed staring out of their metal prison. "But instead we're in...a metal box..?"

"What the hell?" Xephos sighed, stepping away from the window to further examine the room. There was no door to be seen save the portal set into the rear wall, filling the room with another tint of light and it's dreadful sighing. He now noticed that upon the top beam of the portal it bore steel plate that had inscribed on it several characters. "What does it say up there?"

""_Experimental Space-Time Fissure number eight. Power: Geothermal. Warning, danger, decommissioned July 2077.""_ Honeydew read. "July _twenty seventy seven?! _But that's...the future..."

"Is it?" Xephos asked. "I mean who made this place? It wouldn't be Israphel, would it?"

"Are we in the Doctor's TARDIS?" asked Honeydew, eyes shining as he recalled the many tales of the enigmatic Doctor and his travels through time and space in his mysterious blue box that was bigger on the inside. "What's going on!?"

"I don't know!" Xephos yelled, his voice echoing through the cube. "This is not what I was expecting at all! I thought that we would find ourselves in Israphel's evil castle of doom. But I guess that he's been using these to move about, so maybe this place is like some kind of portal housing area?"

"What are these things?" asked Honeydew as he tapped one of the glass screen that the lights flashed behind with his pick.

"I don't think you should meddle with that." Xephos warned. "So what do we do now?"

"I don't know...is there anything..." Honeydew said as he stepped away from the contraption. "This is all just blowing my mind! These machines are way beyond anything that I've ever seen! Even back in Dwergholm's experiment wings we had nothing even close to this stuff, whatever it is! Is there anything that we can even interact with properly? Any clues to where in the hell we are?"

"I don't-"

"This feels wrong, Xephos!" Honeydew yelled. "This feels unnatural. It doesn't belong here, in our world! This is wrong!"

"I know what you mean!" Xephos yelled over his friend trying to calm him down. "I've got a prickly feeling in my-"

"We shouldn't have gone through. We shouldn't have gone through!" Honeydew yelled, beginning to properly panic, tugging at his beard. "We should've destroyed the portal, we should never had gone through! There's no Daisy here!"

"Well Knight Peculier did say to destroy the portals and not to go through them." Xephos looked back out of the window at the hellish biome that lay outside of their cell.

Honeydew drew in a long breath.

"We need to get back to the Bay, we need to sort out this Jock situation. He's an Agent of Israphel."

"Alright." Xephos turned away from the window to Honeydew standing near the portal frame. "We'll sort this out later." he stepped towards the portal, then remembered the zombies on the other side and drew his blade in case.

"We'll worry about this later." Honeydew agreed as he followed Xephos into the folds of the purple ripples with his axe drawn, sucking them back across countless leagues and possibly years to the portal beneath Barbeque Bay.

They emerged back in the dark, wet cave, expecting to be attacked by the pale wakers upon entry, yet as they stood on the rocky outcrop, the cave remained silent and the water still.

"Where are the zombies?" asked Honeydew quietly.

"I don't know..." Xephos admitted, looking about the room further, squinting past the glow of his sword. "How long were we in there?" he suddenly said with a sense of dread.

"What?" Honeydew replied.

"That sign said that the portal had something to do with time, so whose to say that time doesn't flow faster or even slower inside The Nether?"

Honeydew went pale.

"We could of been in there for years." he said.

"How do we get out of here." Xephos looked back about the cave. "We need to find out what's happened." The sludge that Jock had poured down the hole after them was still glowing faintly across the black water, blocking the way. "How are we going to get past the sludge stuff?"

"That's a good question," Honeydew using his dwarven eyesight to look throughout the room found no other passage or exit for them to escape from save numerous small caves lining the walls of the cave. "and I do not know the answer to it."

Xephos pulled on his goatee, which was now more of a beard. "We could try to bail that stuff out of the way-"

Honeydew cleared his throat. "Xephos, I think we have to dig our way out. The old-fashioned way."

"That will take a hell of a long time." Xephos said cooly.

"Not necessarily." Honeydew sniffed the air. "We're not too far below sea-level, so if I can find a wall of shingle that goes up to the water level we can flood this cave, and so long as we hold onto something so that we don't get swept away with the current we may be able to swim out."

"Okay," Xephos sighed after a moment of thought and realising that there was no other alternative, while still watching for any pale wakers. "we don't have any better options. Let's destroy this portal for a start." he suddenly glanced towards the pool as a low groan came across the water like an icy breeze. "And do it quickly."

"Okay, that might be an idea." Honeydew agreed and set about to quickly chipping at the left beam of the portal's black frame, fully aware of the growing noise as the undead woke again. "What was going on in that room?" asked Honeydew as Xephos busied himself by lighting half a dozen torches for them to carry and to keep off the zombies.

"Yeah, it was a bit weird wasn't it?" agreed Xephos, watching the water, sure that he could see a white body moving beyond the light every second or so.

"I think that it _is_ a bit like a TARDIS," Honeydew grunted as he gave one last swing with Lysander's old pickaxe, shattering the last resistance of the obsidian beam, banishing the purple light, resulting in a unanimous hiss from the waters. "Israphel's got all of these portals," Honeydew continued, as he took a torch from Xephos. "set up across the world, so I think that he goes in a portal, he's in his little TARDIS, and then he goes out again, and then he's in a different place."

"But it said number eight on it." Xephos reminded him.

"So that could be, the number of the portal?" Honeydew theorised, setting off along the edge of the rocky shore, following the right wall, seeking a way where they may escape. "Maybe there are eight portals across the world? How many portals have we come across, I mean we_ made_ one of them. Gods, I don't like thinking that we in some way are responsible for all of this." They came to a steep slope leading up to a smaller cave set into the wall of the cavern, it's lip overhanging the water. As they headed up, Xephos, who was taking the rear was ever aware of the sound of many soft, wet feet padding stealthily after them, just out of the torchlight.

"There's a lot of zombies back there." Honeydew said, noticing them too. "Is there any way that we can block the way off?"

"Just keep your torch lit. They seem to be more cautious now, and they don't like light."

"Okay, let's look around this cave, see if there's any loose rock that I can use to dig our way out."

Xephos raised his torch as he headed to the rear of the cave, wondering how far it stretched, whilst Honeydew lit a their last torch and dropped it at the cave mouth to keep the wakers away while he surveyed the rock. It did not take Xephos long to find the back wall of the cave, but what he found did not reassure him in the slightest. Instead of the smoothed, natural stone that the cavern was carved from, the back wall was fashioned from ancient cobbles, covered in sickly moss that climbed it's way up the cobblestone wall, which was interrupted halfway up by a gaping crack the thickness of Xephos' head where there echoed a symphony of gurgling.

"Oh gods, Honeydew..!" Xephos called to his friend. "There's an actual dungeon in here too." he peered through the crack where, sure enough he could spy the flaming cage that was spawning the undead green-skinned inhabitants.

"Oh gods." Honeydew moaned as he came alongside Xephos when a decaying arm reached through the crack, groping at the newcomers that brought with them such noise and light.

"Look." Xephos held his light closer to the crack as Honeydew stood on tip-toe, eyeing the throng of zombies within. "That's terrifying."

"Are you kidding me?" Honeydew laughed, his voice echoing through the cave. "What the hell is going on? Look at all of them in there! It's a bloody good thing that they can't get out."

"Let's just get out of this damned cave. Have you found anything that you can dig through to get us out?" Xephos asked, turning away from the dungeon, resisting the urge to loot it despite of the small horde of undead within.

"Uh, yeah I have, actually." Honeydew led Xephos over to near the mouth of the small cave, overhanging the pool where the only thing between the two of them and the pale wakers was a solitary torch that lay at the mouth. Honeydew stopped before a section of wall that was made of tightly packed shingle instead of stone between a pair of fang-like stalagmites. "I think that this shale will probably come away easily, and it will hopefully open up to to a higher cave, or, it may open to ocean, and possibly drown us. So I'm liking these odds that we have."

"Better get started, then." Xephos advised. "These torches aren't going to last forever."

"Okay, so I'll do some diggy-diggy, and you watch the entrance." Honeydew said, drawing his pick. "I think that when the water comes down we should probably grab onto these stalagmites here. Or we will probably end up like _them."_

Xephos turned towards the mouth and drew his sword as one of the wakers groaned in the darkness. He collected himself and stood sentinel as Honeydew began to hack away at the shale, spilling great gouges of the loose pebbles onto the cave floor. After Honeydew swung the pick's shovel head into the shingle for the fifth time, the structure holding up the tide of pebbles came away, and surged out of the wall. Honeydew only barely managed to avoid the wave, crying out to Xephos, who turned as the shingle surged into him, knocking him to the floor and his sword from his grasp. Half buried in shale, Xephos tried to reach out for his blade as it clanged off of the ground and over the edge of the floor, where with a splash Xephos' loyal blue blade sank deep into the black pool, until it's glow disappeared into the shadowy depths, never to be seen again in this age nor any other.

"Shit!" Honeydew cried as he pulled Xephos from the rubble, Xephos who was still staring after his blade, long since disappeared, spinning through the water. "Sorry, oh fucking gods your sword. I'm so sorry Xephos."

"It's fine. It happens." Xephos said, his voice dry and sad. That sword had been given to him by Honeydew a week after he'd fallen from the sky into Dwergholm, the glowing blade and hilt had been made from the pieces of wreckage that had surrounded him in the crater that Honeydew had found him in, the mark on the hilt a replica of the badge he wore on his breast. Although he could remember nothing of his life before his crash, he felt the sword was a connection to his past, as foggy as it was. Now that it was gone, he felt a part of himself was too. "We don't have time for this." he said, steeling himself. "We've got to get back. Jock's probably up to something."

Honeydew found some consolation to the fact that the slip had cleared much of the shingle away, leaving a hollow the size of a medium sized wardrobe, with only a ceiling of fragmented looking rock above, slowly dripping water.

"Good news." Honeydew said in a none to cheerful tone. "Good news: I think I've found a way out. Bad news: We are probably going to drown."

"Oh gods," Xephos looked up into the hollow, and noticing the dripping water caught a drop on his palm and smelt it. "salt water." he confirmed.

"So that's the ocean up there." Honeydew grimaced. "There's no possible way this could go wrong, but I'd still grab hold of the stalagmite there."

And so as Xephos stood fast with his arms clenched around the stalactite left of the hole while Honeydew grasped the right with one hand and in the other he held his entrenching tool, taken from the Wall days ago.

"Oh shit, here we go." he breathed.

Thrice he drove the point of the war-shovel into the ceiling, cracking it until it gave away and seawater flooded through the hole. Honeydew dropped the the shovel which was swept away into the cave to join Xephos' sword, and grabbed the stalagmite while the water rushed past the two, sweeping their legs off of the ground, as it fell out of the small cave to the larger cavern. The pale wakers screamed as the new water powered into their cave, in which the water was rising quickly, soon to engulf them and the two heroes.

The only light now came from the last torch that Xephos held as the water splashed up with liquid fingers, trying to squeeze the life out of the last light. Honeydew looked over at Xephos and pointed at the hole where the water poured. "Follow the light!" he instructed. Then the water was up to their chests, then necks, until the sea flowed over them, quenching the flame and filling the cavern with darkness once more.

Honeydew held his breath as the last of the water surged in, and suddenly the water was still. The tall dwarf pulled himself ahead, swimming blind towards where he thought that the hole would be, iron helm in hand. He made to wait for Xephos, but a push against his feet told him that he would have to go first. Honeydew felt his way into the small hollow and opened his eyes. Up above the sunlight beamed through the clear water, lighting their way through the depths, Honeydew squirmed into the hole, only wide enough for him to kick with his feet up to the sea-floor, the lack of oxygen burning his lungs and the pressure of the water crushing him until he swam out of the hole, moving aside to look down for a spilt second to make sure Xephos had not been hampered, before kicking off mightily to break the surface only yards away. When Xephos surfaced Honeydew was floating on his back, stomach heaving as he gathered his lost air.

"I-am-sick of-water." Xephos panted.

"Second time-in two days-we've nearly drowned." Honeydew grinned, now treading water.

"Where are we?" asked Xephos. He'd surfaced facing the wooded shore that surrounded Barbeque Bay, yet as he turned Honeydew spoke first.

"Oh my gods...Xephos, Xephos!" Honeydew yelled.

"What's wrong?" Xephos answered, turning in the water to see that a couple hundred yards away sat Barbeque Bay, but something was not right, from it he could here cries of dismay as pirates, tavern owners and whores alike ran for boats that were rapidly pulling away from their moorings, those who couldn't reach them leapt for the water.

"Barbeque Bay is on fire, Xephos!"

And there in the heart of the platforms Xephos saw it, a kernel of fire, spreading rapidly, plumes of smoke already streaming high above into the clear azure sky.

"Shit." Xephos said, then began to swim frantically towards the Bay, Honeydew not far behind. Precious minutes later they swam through a throng of pirates intent of swimming away from the blaze, finally managing to pull themselves onto one of the east docks as more people leapt into the water.

"Oh my gods it is getting completely out of control." Xephos breathed. The fire had already burned away mot of the center of the lower floor, and was spreading to the outer reaches and upper level, where flaming planks already fell into the water. "Where is Jock?"

"It was him! It were Jock!" came a voice. They turned to see standing on the edge of the dock the thin old man they'd seen earlier, repairing the pillar on the other side of the bay. "He started th' fire! 'E's burnin' th' Bay! I saw 'im topside." the old man informed.

"Thank you," Xephos said in a hurry. "How do we get up?" he asked.

The man pointed them over to a thick wooden strut leading up to the top level, on the outside was a ladder that would get them to the second level of the burning bay.

"Quick!" Honeydew yelled. "Let's get him!"

They reached the ladder and began to hurry up it, Xephos first, aware of the fire rapidly spreading about the wooden dock. Xephos pulled himself up and onto the wooden floor of the ladder's landing, and there across a gap burned in the floor between two buildings in the center of the second level stood Jock Fireblast with his back to them, surrounded by flame, screaming to the smoke filled sky.

"Now that those fools be dead, I can burn this place to the ground!" he yelled, and from his raised hand the issued forth a gout of flame, setting alight more of the bay. "Just as I did to Mistral City!"

Xephos froze and turned to look at Honeydew, who was now growing red with anger.

"That bastard!" he glowered, drawing his axe. Xephos unshouldered his bow, his only remaining weapon, and they sprinted along the outside of the buildings searching for a way into the center and to Jock that wasn't already alight with tongues of fire.

"Around here!" Honeydew yelled as he found a passage through the flames on the north side of the Bay, leading them to the center of the level between flaming buildings and towers of smoke.

"There he is!" Honeydew pointed over to the huge red-coated pirate standing with his cutlass drawn, a conductor in his symphony of fire.

"_**Jock!" **_Xephos yelled. The big man turned to face them, and as he recognised who they were, a look of fear shot across his face before it was replaced with a rage as hot as the fire about them. He growled and flew towards them in the small clearing from the fire, the wood creaking in protest as he landed before them, his clothes afire yet the flames did not seem to touch him. He raised his hand to scorch them in arcane fire, but Xephos then fired his bow, sending an arrow through one side of his palm and out of the other. Jock growled in fury, clenching his fist, blood running down his arm, then came at them with cutlass flashing. "Come 'ere!" Honeydew yelled, swinging wildly with his sword, only to be masterfully blocked by Jock, who would attack twice for every of Honeydew's slashes, whilst Xephos stood off, firing at him, wounding the exile captain on his shoulder and thigh. Jock suddenly slashed at Honeydew, cutting him down his arm, opening an red gash of the dwarf. Honeydew cursed, and made to tackle the pirate before Jock kicked him back into the flames where he disappeared as a wall collapsed onto him.

"Fuck you!" Xephos yelled, loading another arrow. Jock looked up, face framed with fire, then ran at Xephos. At that moment, the fire weakened bay gave an almighty moan, and in a chorus of splinters, the second floor split in two, the two sides leaning inwards like a great wooden book being shut. Struggling for purchase, Xephos slid back and found himself falling through the air as he fell through the gap rent in the middle of the bay. Jock leapt after him with cutlass raised and fire in his eyes. Xephos aimed well as the air and smoke whipped past him, and finally loosed his arrow. The shaft flew through the air and thudded into Jock's chest, the fletching catching fire and burning away. The big man made no sound as he died, or maybe Xephos did not hear, but moments layer he landed back first into the water below Barbeque Bay, and debris fell after him.

Xephos surface screaming and gasping for air. The landing had knocked all the air from him and wounded his back badly, he had to do his best to ignore the pain as more debris fell from the top level into the hole burned through the center of the bottom level. Xephos looked and called for Honeydew as he swam to the south of the bay, but all that answered him was the crackling of flame. Cursing, Xephos swam on, finding on his way out of the ruins the body of Jock Fireblast, floating face down in the water, an arrowhead poking from his back, red blood surrounding him. He dragged the body with him, searching for where he may have kept the map fragment as he swam, but Xephos found naught but a golden apple within the captain coat pocket, which he transfered to his own. He left the body and swam past the edge of the platform as a barrel splashed heavily next to him, he swam further away fro the burning bay, now completely alight in an awesome and terrifying painting of spite and betrayal. He called for Honeydew again, but there once again came no answer.

He floated for a while, until there came a call from behind him. Xephos turned drearily to see that only twenty yards away Isabel Peculier was sailing the Black Pimple his way, the only pirate brave enough to venture so close to the bay.

"Xephos!" Isabel cried. "Join me on the Black Pimple!"

Xephos swam slowly over to the side of the ship as Isabel threw down a rope ladder from the side of the ship. He drearily hauled himself over the side of the ship and onto the deck, standing before Isabel and Tinman.

"Have you seen Honeydew?" asked Xephos desperately.

"No...where is he?" Isabel asked, now sounding distressed. "We were the first ship to pull away from the bay, and saw you and Honeydew going after Jock. Where are they?"

"Jock is dead." Xephos did not look up. "Last I saw of Honeydew Jock knocked him into the fire, then the ground fell out and I shot Jock as we fell."

There then came a sudden loud crack from the bay, like a thunderstrike as the four pillars, burnt to much to hold up the remains of the platform any longer. Xephos turned and clenched the Black Pimple's balustrade as the pillars began to fall inwards to the maw of fiery teeth, when Xephos spied something moving along the eastern edge of the bay as it collapsed. Xephos watched in angst as the figure raced for the edge of the platform that faced the Pimple, the slope increasing beneath his feet every second. A moment later, the orange bearded figure leapt out over the burning wood as the timber exploded into splinters and flame while he fell like a stone for the water, horned iron helmet in hand, flourishing with an acrobatic backwards rotation before hitting the water feet first, sending up a plume of white froth as a powder reserve on the bay exploded behind him in crescendo. Honeydew surfaced seconds later as Barbeque Bay began to sink beneath the waves to the howls of those who'd managed to find themselves onto a boat or far enough out to sea. Seeing the small boat nearby and it's crew, the dwarf punched the air with his helmet still in hand. They called him over to the boat, and pulled him up onto the deck.

"Isabel!" he yelled, wrapping his arms around the surprised lady pirate. "Oh gods," he winced touching the deep cut down his shoulder. "'Ello then." he smiled at Xephos.

"How on earth did you survive?" Xephos asked, before being pulled into a bear-hug by the dwarf, who smelled of smoke and had more than a third of his impressive beard burnt off. "I saw you go into the fire."

"I'm a dwarf, Xephos, fire doesn't hurt be like it does you folk, but my poor beard got singed. I was trapped under that rubble for a long while, and when I got out neither you nor Jock was about, then the bay began to fall in on itself so I ran for the edge and jumped off, as you saw me do. But what about Jock? Did you kill him? Did he have the map?"

"I got Jock," Xephos answered. "but-"

"Hooray!" called Honeydew, punching Xephos on the arm, then looking up at the sky noticed the sun was setting. "Hold on, it's evening already?" confused he turned to Isabel. "How long were we gone after we went to Jock's ship?" he asked.

"Oh, but you were gone for hours! I was growing worried, thinking that he'd harmed you, I was going to come after you myself, when Jock reappeared, and then you after him. But what happened? Did he capture you?"

"Sort of..." Honeydew said awkwardly, trying not to seem weak in front of Isabel.

"Turns out Jock had a Nether Portal in a cave under his base," Xephos spoke up. "which was also full of, well, his undead crew members." Xephos filled Isabel in on the rest of the story, choosing to leave out that they had gone through the portal. "But when I searched Jock I couldn't find the map on his person." Xephos finally admitted.

Honeydew groaned. "It may be in his ship, we need to go back and search it for anything. It might be hidden in there or somewhere nearby."

"That can wait." Isabel said, turning and stepped past Tinman, who had been observing the whole time, and strode towards the small aftcastle at the rear of the ship. "The other captains will want to hear more of this, no doubt. "Isabel started up the stairs to the ship's wheel. "I heard Angus call for the ships to meet further out to sea, to discuss our next move now that Barbeque Bay has fallen." She stood firmly now behind the wheel, and placed a tricorn hat atop her head of black tresses before looking down at the three below her. "So hurry up and raise the sails, you lot," said the Dread Pirate Norris. "I expect they'll be getting impatient."

They had arrived at the moot late, the sun just dripping below the horizon as they set to mooring the Black Pimple against a huge cluster of ships sitting clumped together further out to sea, anchored down and lashed together by sturdy ropes as the main contingency of pirates gathered on Angus' great galleon. Many withdrew from their path as Isabel led the way, followed by Tinman and Xephos and Honeydew, walking brazenly up to Angus Eyeless and his aide Spacker who stood on the aftcastle, Angus informing them of what had happened as best he knew, before being interrupted by Isabel. She recited the tale Xephos had told her, recounting too what she'd seen as he and Honeydew had escaped the ruins of the bay. The pirates moods and responses went from anger, to fear to anger again as they listened to the tale, yet the next few minutes passed by Xephos and Honeydew, both of whom were virtually sleepwalking as the pirates congratulated them on how they had killed Jock.

It was late into the night as Isabel led them back to her ship, opening a hatch in the deck's center and leading the two below the decks of the Black Pimple. They were seated at a small table as Tinman obeyed Isabel and lit three lanterns about the belly of the ship before he retrieved a bottle of some substance and three cups which were laid on the table before Tinman went to stand guard beneath the hatch.

"Drink this." Isabel ordered the two exaughisted heroes, pouring them each a tankard of the colourless liquid. "It will make you feel better." she urged.

The two took the cups, Xephos drinking without question, while Honeydew, his sleepiness not dulling his wiles, spoke out.

"How do I know this isn't drugged, making me a poor defenseless dwarf at the will of a very ravishing young woman?" he winked. "There's really no reason, you could just ask."

Isabel laughed as Honeydew lifted the tankard to his lips just as Xephos laid his down.

"What is that stuff?" asked Xephos, who under the affects of the strange sugary tincture could feel himself slowly becoming more lucid.

"Gods be good, it's sure got a kick." Honeydew remarked before finishing his own. "Is it alcoholic?"

"It's a drink that I came across on my adventures, called Crimson Bull." Isabel replied. "It's got a remarkable ability to wake up nearly anyone, but no, it's none alcoholic. I need you both well awake for this."

"Oho!" Honeydew beamed. "I think I like where this is going..."

"There'll be time for that later, Honeydew." Xephos sighed. "Isabel, please continue."

Isabel Peculier pushed back her seat and rocked it on it's back feet, resting her feet on the tabletop as she'd done in the galley at Barbeque Bay, and sighed.

"Heroes, thank you." she looked at the two of them. "For although Barbeque Bay is lost, you have killed a terrible fiend this day."

"Greater than you think." Xephos spoke. "I don't know if you heard, but Mistral City burned down a week ago. We assumed that we'd been betrayed by one of our friends, Skylord Lysander, but it seems we were wrong." Xephos paused. "It was Jock that burned down the city. We heard him saying so himself as we confronted him. It seems we were tricked when he framed Lysander, and only now I realise that it all make sense."

"What are you talking about, Xephos?" asked Honeydew, one eyebrow raised.

"Back in Mistral City I overheard Lysander talking to Father Braeburn, who said that he'd heard that the arsonists of, it may pain you to hear, your family home were Israphel and a large bulky man. So we've killed two birds with one stone, in that sense."

"Then..." Honeydew said. "What happened to Lysander?"

"Oh gods, I don't know."

"There's something else," Isabel declared, then her gaze dropped almost in shame as she pulled something for her pocket. "Here, I found this in the water after the bay caught fire." and between a hurricane lantern and the bottle of Crimson Bull on the table Isabel laid a small, water-stained and sad looking piece of paper.

Xephos and Honeydew both grabbed for it, Xephos pulling it away from his friend and flattening out the paper on the tabletop.

"Oh my..." Honeydew said with a gasp.

"It's the map fragment that you were searching for." nodded Isabel, still not making eye contact. For it was indeed the second piece of the map, it bore upon it the same markings as the first, which Honeydew then pulled from his pocket, where, he'd kept the map ever since they'd shed their bags on the deck an hour ago. Yet it seemed that the two fragments corresponded diagonally, as there was no alignment between the two.

"You found this in the sea?" Xephos asked, hardly believing their luck. "But when? Why didn't you tell us?"

"Isabel?" Honeydew added when she did not look up.

"I would not have liked to talk of such things so near to His work," she finally replied. "Besides, it wasn't dry yet." she smiled.

"Well now that we have the map we can go and search for the next." Honeydew said. "So do we return to Swampy?"

"You're leaving?" Isabel spoke up, then looking immediately furious with herself for showing emotion. "I just... hoped that you might stay..."

Honeydew stared a long while at Isabel as the lantern light turned his beard to fire while she fought to avoid his dark eyes. Xephos now felt extremely awkward and out of place at the spectacle that was unfolding. "We will stay the night," he said sternly a second later. "we cannot allow any delay in our mission. You know this, Honeydew, come on man!" The dwarf nodded and sat back without a word.

"I will see to it that you have adequate bedding for the night." Isabel answered, taking her feet off of the table. "...But before you leave, I would tell you my tale." she then reached forward and poured herself a tankard of Crimson Bull, and took a hearty gulp before sitting back. And even as she did begin to speak it seemed that the lanterns dimmed, and the gentle rocking of the seas subsided.

"You have spoken before of my long lost brother, a knight Peculier. If you see him again, tell him that I am sorry. I never believed him when he spoke of Israphel. The pale faced man, but now, with what I saw in Jock's eyes I realise I have been blind to the truth.

"Our family has a sad history. When we were babes, our parents were take from us, I was to young to remember, but my brother has told me many times what happened that fateful night." Isabel pushed back her chair and stood, walking slowly over to the wall, where she leant and took another draught of the tankard. "A terrible evil abducted our mother, and shortly after, our father disappeared. We then grew up in the care of Adaephon and the Templars, yet when I was sixteen, I could stand it no longer. My brother was obsessed with finding Israphel, and one night...I left." she sighed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Many years have passed since then. I have stolen glowstone from the land of Xinxan, and found golden hoards buried on the Tiki Isles, battled cursed priests and snapped the diamond teeth from the bones of dead dragons,"

"Blimey..." Honeydew whispered.

"...but I have not escaped my legacy it seems." Isabel gave a short cynical laugh. "It was a dark and stormy night, as they always are, and I was sleeping awkwardly in by ship, when I was awoken by the door slamming open. And _He,_ was standing there." Isabel shivered and drained her tankard dropping it to the floor.

"Then fortune struck, and the door opened again. In a moment of madness I thought that it was my father, but no. Israphel turned to attack the visitor, but the metal man fought wildly until finally, Israphel retreated, and left my savior watching over me. I called him Tinman, and patched him back together as best I could."

They turned to look at the metal construct stood at the rear of the room in awe, where Isabel's guardian stayed as quiet and humble as ever.

"I never believed my brother's tales of Israphel until that night. And now, after seeing the terrible evil that lurked inside Jock, I know how real this threat is.

"If you see my brother tell him that I am sailing to Icaria, and that he will have my sword for when the final battle comes. But now you two must continue your search, I am sure that you are eager to leave." she finished curtly, taking the Crimson Bull and supplying the two with bedrolls and promising Xephos a sword on the morrow after noticing it's absence, then left them before they could say any more, Tinman following his mistress.

They laid out their bedrolls on the ship floor, rocking as gently as a infant's crib, Xephos making sure to put himself between Honeydew and the exit. As they lay on the rolls of soft fabric Xephos could feel the effects of the Crimson Bull wearing off, leaving him more sapped of energy than he already was, yet as he began to delve into a fitful sleep he heard something creeping along the wooden floor near his feet.

Xephos shot up groggily to find Honeydew attempting to make his way to the hatch, standing perfectly still in mid-step as he noticed he'd been caught.

"Where are you going?" asked Xephos disapprovingly.

"Uhh..." Honeydew began.

"You're going to see Isabel aren't you?" Xephos got to his feet as quickly as his tired form was able.

"Come on man, you saw the messages she was giving me, man! She wants it!" Honeydew complained.

"As much as it makes me sick, need I remind you about Granny Bacon?" asked Xephos, his voice a harsh whisper. "Do you think that you can handle it if that were to happen again?"

"What do you mean-"

"Honeydew, _she was turned undead!" _Xephos nearly yelled in exasperation. "What do you think would happen if Israphel found out that you were courting her and then decided to use her as bait? And not to mention how Knight Peculier would react."

"But, this feels different..." Honeydew stared at his feet.

"What!? Xephos said, startled. "You don't mean- surely you don't mean that you-"

"Yes."

"And you're sure about it?"

"Well I've never felt it like this before." Honeydew looked up. "I mean, normally when I'm with a woman the only thing that has any feeling is down here," he groped his crotch. "but this, feels like it's coming from here..." the dwarf pointed to his breast.

"Woah." Xephos said after a moment of silence. "That was really deep man. What the hell?"

"Well, there's definitely _some_ feeling down there." Honeydew grinned. "That's what got me up actually."

"For gods sake." Xephos rolled his eyes. "And you are absolutely sure it is l-"

"Yes, Xephos it is. I realised it when she was talking about her adventures. _She's killed dragons!_ I mean nothing is sexier than a woman who can kick you arse."

"Well if that is how you really feel..." Xephos sighed.

"It is."

"And you're sure..."

"I am!" Honeydew began to make his way over to the hatch.

"Then don't."

After this declaration there came a long silence.

"What?" Honeydew peered at Xephos.

"Honeydew, there's too much riding on us now for be getting involved with people like this."

"Is that why you're always so stone-bloody cold then, Mr. Serious?" Honeydew huffed.

"Honeydew, as far as this quest is concerned, anyone who we are emotionally connected to is a weakness that can be tapped. We need to be careful."

"But how can I ignore something like this!?" Honeydew wailed so loud that they both winced.

"I know." Xephos breathed.

"Do you?" Honeydew asked, turning and slumping over to his bedroll. "Do you really?"

Xephos did not answered as he returned to his own, but deep within him he felt something stir, for he did know how it felt to leave someone. A woman there was in his memory, so fragile that he could not even make her out past the outline of her, but it was all that he could remember of before his fall, and she would have to wait the longer and harder than Honeydew could imagine. And as he did every night, Xephos held onto that memory as sleep came for him, for fear that he would loose her forever.

_Author's notes:_

_Good morning, evening, and afternoon, my friends._

_This one was a pain in the arse too. The chapter itself was rather short, especially when you look at some of my older chapters, but as an action chapter I thought that it was alright. The reason it was a pain was because over the last week and a half we've been have internal assessments at school, and for those of you who don't understand New Zealand's education system, that means every subject at once gives you work to do while at home, so that took up a lot of my time, and I apologise for that._

_Well that's all for now. Thanks and good day _

_~O.J_


	25. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter25

Chapter 25: Visions.

When Xephos opened his eyes, he found himself falling. All about him a void of twisting panes of aquamarine light swirled about him, as he let out a cry he looked left and saw Honeydew falling beside him, down the endless tube of light. Xephos tried to shout over to his friend but his voice was whipped away in the strange windless free-fall, Honeydew just staring over at him, when out of the side of the cyclone a dark shape flew towards them. Xephos and Honeydew felt strong hands gripping them as the shape pulled them out into the side of the light shaft, when they were engulfed in a pulsating purple light. The shape then let them go, and the light ended altogether. Xephos' breath was pulled from his lungs as he landed on a firm yet squishy surface, he looked up just as Honeydew flew through the air after passing out of the light, and landing with a grunt in a sheet of black hanging from a wooden post.

"Ow." came Honeydew's voice from within the folds of the now torn down cloth. Xephos, having recovered his breath stood, and gaped.

"Ah...Honeydew?" he said loudly, his voice echoing. "You should see this." as the dwarf pulled himself from what Xephos now saw was a sail-cloth hanging in tatters to a mast that stood angled out of the ground, he too gaped at their surroundings. The ground all about them; red and oddly soft, stretched across a plain into small hills, ravines, the walls and ceiling of the huge cavern that they stood within, gouts of molten lava pouring from walls and the ceiling into great pools, the spitting image of what they had seen out of the portal facility under Barbeque Bay; The Nether.

"We are in deep, deep shit." Honeydew said as he took in too, the ship around them, broken and half buried at and angle in the meaty netherrack, as though in the process of sinking, it was then that Honeydew realised what ship it was.

"Hang on, this is the Black Pimple, Isabel's ship!" he gasped from the heat, already making him sweat. "What the hell has happened!? Is this the future or something?"

"Yes, I think you'll find that it is something like that." came a old, hard voice behind them.

The two turned to the door of the Black Pimple's aft-castle, hands going to their weapons, only to find none. In the doorway stood a figure, old, yet nearly filling the doorway and radiating power, he was completely bald save for a thick beard covering the lower portion of his face, the hair had once been black but now was grey as slate. He wore formal clothing, as though attending an event, complete with a golden monocle that rested on an eye with a scar that snaked from his temple to mouth corner, causing the eye to be a blind white.

"Who are you-" Honeydew began, stepping back.

"Wait..." Xephos stared at the stranger, dimly lit by the crystals of glowstone from the ceiling above. "...Verigan?" The moment that the words were spoken there was no doubt. The man before them was older than the one seen by the two heroes in the magical mist at Verigan's Hold, and lacked his hammer, but the resemblance was obvious.

"Heroes, time is short." Verigan spoke, stepping out of the door frame. "I see that you have found two pieces of my map, and in the joining of the two of them I can communicate with you."

"So why did you bring us here?" Honeydew asked, unsure if it was expected of him to bow.

"To bring you a warning, for this is not the Nether, this is, like I said, the future." Verigan rumbled.

"Oh gods, this is the future?" Xephos looked at Verigan, then their surroundings.

"The future of the world, should you two fail in your quest. The land shall be transformed into a nightmare." as Verigan finished, there suddenly came a shuddering from the earth, and across the plain of netherrack, Xephos pointed towards a hump in the grounds, forced up by something beneath it, pushing through the earth towards them.

"What is that?" asked Xephos.

"Oh gods, it's coming this way!" Verigan yelled. "Quickly, come here!"

The two ran to him as the hump came closer at an alarming speed. Verigan grabbed them both and closing his eyes the blue panes surrounded them and as the hump crashed into the ruins of the Black Pimple, they appeared at the foot of a hill of netherrack behind a boulder, and far ahead of them, there stood row upon row of metal figures, eyes glowing a sickly red glow, and at their head, another metal soldier, wearing an eyepatch.

"Gods, is that...Tinman?" Xephos said, then noticed his good eye's red glow. "It's _evil_ Tinman?"

"He's gone bad!" Honeydew swore. "I knew that we couldn't trust him!"

"And there's an army," Xephos sighed. "An army of evil Warforged."

"It's Israphel, isn't it?" Honeydew commented quietly as the Warforged stood idle, suddenly looking up as Verigan, saying nothing spirited them away in blue light to the top of a mountain looking down on a similarly hellish valley.

"There. That is your enemy." he rumbled, pointing over the valley with a huge hand where there stood several huge slate colossus of Israphel, glaring outwards, starkly in contrast with the rest of the deep red landscape.

"This future, does not have to be, you can stop it!" Verigan announced as he teleported them to another mountaintop, this one so high that it nearly brushed the red ceiling. "You must seek out my Grandson, a night named Peculier, and help him to fulfill his destiny. Unite the map pieces to halt the sand invasion, and put an end to the evil beyond the veil." as he finished, Verigan pointed down to the mountain's foot to a plateau.

"What..!?" Honeydew yelled. "Peculier is related to _you?!"_

"Ah, Honeydew..." Xephos said flatly, and nodded down the mountain to where on a throne carved from solid black obsidian, shining in the dull light sat the white pallid figure of Israphel, bedecked in a black similar to his throne's and at each arm, a dragon like that of old sat, red and cruel. At Honeydew's voice, his head turned to look up at them, red eyes burning, and with a gesture, the dragon at his left hand leapt into the air, wings beating, and began speeding through the air towards them.

"Why is the dragon flying towards-RUN AWAY!" Honeydew suddenly yelled at Verigan, who continued to stare unreadably at Israphel. "RUN AWAY!" he repeated, but as Verigan summoned his magic, so too did Israphel, a black wreath surrounding the dragon, and as they disappeared and reappeared back at the ruins of the Black Pimple, so did the dragon.

"Quickly, through the portal!" yelled Verigan, as he summoned out of the ground a black frame pulsing with purple light. "There is no time! Run!" he pushed the two of them towards the portal as the dragon flew closer, opening it's jaws.

"Verigan, noooo-" Xephos yelled as Honeydew dragged him through the portal just as a jet of flame spewed from the dragon's mouth, headed right for Verigan before the portal closed behind him and he only saw darkness.

Xephos woke peacefully the next morning after a long night's sleep, and only after lying still on his bedroll he remembered his dream, and wearily pulled himself to his feet, looking over to Honeydew, sleeping fitfully and splayed out over his roll. Xephos rubbed the remainder of the sleep out of his eyes and roused Honeydew with a nudge of his boot to the dwarf's ribs.

"What!?" Honeydew grunted, sitting up. "What's going on?"

"We need to get ready to leave." Xephos yawned, looking up at the early morning light leaking through the cracks in the deck above them. "Isabel will be waiting for us probably." As Honeydew nodded and scratched miserably at what remained of his singed beard, once flowing down his chest, but now burnt off to just below his collarbone, Xephos turned to him again.

"Did you have a dream last night?" he asked warily.

"Yeah, I did." Honeydew glanced up at Xephos as he made for the hatch. "What made you ask? Did I sleep talk?"

"Was...Verigan in it?" Xephos pried.

"Yes," Honeydew stopped walking and stared. "You _were_ there, it was in the Nether, or rather it was in-"

"The future." Xephos finished. "_"The future, if you two should fail in your quest."_ That's what Verigan said."

"I think that it was a vision, Xephos. A vision of the future! And Verigan said that Peculier, was his _grandson!"_ Honeydew hissed in shock. "That means that Isabel is his granddaughter!"

"We can't really be sure of any of this yet though, can we?" Xephos warned. "Us both having the same dream isn't really enough to go on-"

"Isn't Verigan dead, though?" Honeydew scratched his beard. "He died out in the Sands, so it was his spirit? Gods, what's happening?"

"Do you think he's alright, Honeydew? I think he got set on fire by the dragon."

"I don't think he's alright, I think if wasn't dead before, he is now."

A pall of silence hung over them for a long while, interrupted by only the sounds of many ships going about their work above them.

"We can't say anything, can we?" Honeydew said.

"I think for now that it is best that we don't." Xephos walked past him. "We should get on deck."

They emerged onto the deck and found all around them the numerous crews of ships going about their duties on the decks of their ships, sometimes jumping from one to the next, but all avoided the Black Pimple, and quailed if they fell under the gaze of Tinman, who was standing on the aft-castle.

"I had him stand there the whole night." Isabel said from where she leant against the mast of her ship. "Pirates are pirates, and I reckon that with so many ships close together more thieving went on in the night than any other night of the past year. But none of them will come close if Tinman is about, plus, there may still be agents of Israphel about." she smiled. "Sleep well?"

"Better than we have in weeks." Xephos said as Honeydew asked for a razor so that he may fix his beard. Isabel handed him her small but extremely sharp looking knife, and using the broad, shiny surface of his diamond axe as a mirror, he went to the side of the ship to clean his burnt beard. Xephos made to go after him so the he too could trim his tawny beard back into a goatee, but Isabel stopped him before he could leave.

"I managed to find you a new sword, like I promised." she reached to her side and picked up a sword set into a leather scabbard leaning against mast. "You know this blade. I confiscated it off some looters who came back from the ruins of Barbeque Bay, they looted it off Jock's body." she passed the sword to Xephos who gazed it over, drawing it. It was the saber that Jock had wielded in their fight, the curved hand-guard a red-bronze and decorated with fanciful depictions of flames that continued on the shark-skin handle and the curved blade. "Far too valuable a weapon for Jock to have, and even more so the looters, this is an old blade, and although I do not know what, there is old magic in it."

"When I fought Jock he used this sword." Xephos replied, taking a few slashes at the air with it. The attack style that it demanded was one that he was totally unfamiliar with, allowing only slashing and disabling stabbing totally.

"Now there's a fine looking weapon." Honeydew hooted as he returned, his beard now sharply cut and ending at his collarbone. "If you don't want it Xephos, well I wouldn't mind having a go..."

"Maybe another time." Xephos laughed as he undid his scabbard for his previous sword and donned the long curved one in replacement. Isabel offered to keep his previous scabbard until he wanted it back again. Xephos shrugged. "Sell it or throw it in the sea for all I care, I won't be needing it anymore." he said forcefully, trying to put his other sword out of his mind as he took the knife and axe from Honeydew and walked to the edge of the deck to clean up his facial hair.

After he was done Isabel gave both of them a small loaf of bread to break their fast on, and some more dried meat and hard biscuit-like bread for when they traveled. Xephos took the occasion to force Honeydew to empty out his pack of much of the random curios that he'd picked up mainly because they looked shiny.

"Dread Pirate," came a sudden deep and nearly gurgling voice behind them. They all turned to see Spacker LeChuck standing on the fore-deck, ignoring the fact that Tinman, despite being fifty yards away looked ready to leap at him at any given moment. "I would ask your permission to accompany these two."

The undead dwarf pirate stood totally still, waiting for a answer. He wore about his otherwise bare midriff a wrap of tough fabric covering the gaping hole that went from one side of his body to the next, and he too wore a pack, with his heavy falchion hanging from his hip.

"Oh?" Isabel said in surprise. "But Spacker, what about Angus, and your position in his crew?"

Spacker snorted. "What position? I'm an aid to a blind captain in a crew that would rather have me dead." he sighed. "I've already signed off from Angus, he'll find another first mate, an' frankly if I stay around any longer I'm likely going to be killed. The half of the crews that don't think I had something to do with the Burning of the Bay still want me dead. I've been away from the caves for too long, and I intend to head back to Stoneholm regardless of if you would have me travel with you." he nodded at Xephos and Honeydew. "Besides, I have heard rumors of a map and may be able to help."

"...Sure, you can come with us, I guess?" Xephos scratched the back of his neck.

"_What?!"_ Honeydew whispered.

"Very well." Isabel sighed. "I will miss your help Spacker. Be careful."

"You too, Isabel." Spacker grimmaced. "We should cast off now, there is no time to waste."

"This is a bit odd." Honeydew said in a low voice so Spacker couldn't hear them as they were set to untying the Black Pimple by Isabel. "I feel sort of like we've picked up a stray, Xephos."

They looked over at Spacker as Isabel called for them to push them off the tangle of boats and raise the sail as they turned and headed back towards the shore.

Mid-morning was breaking through a cluster of low grey clouds when Isabel brought them close to the shore near the ruins of Barbeque Bay and called for them to lower the single life boat into the water. Awkward goodbyes and well wishes were exchanged, until Xephos was able to finally pull Honeydew away from Isabel and drag him into the dinghy with Spacker, before they pushed off towards the shore.

"And dwarf!" Isabel called as they were not twenty yards away from the Black Pimple, the remains of Barbeque Bay pointing out of the water like jagged teeth behind it. Honeydew looked up from the oar. "We shall have to reunite with that drink some time." she finished with a wink.

"I guess that we'll see her in Icaria." Xephos said from the rear of the craft as Spacker didn't look up from his oar.

"See ya' soon, love!" Honeydew called, waving as he stood up in the boat, Spacker and Xephos scrambling to the sides to stop it from capsizing from the disbalancing. "Keep the dwarf beer warm, and the hearth cold. Or is it the other way around? I forget-" he finished as Spacker pulled him back into his seat and told him to keep rowing.

"Tinman, raise anchor, let us ready for voyage!" Isabel's voice could only just be heard as they crept closer to the shore.

The dinghy was landed without drama on the shore, where it was soon dragged into the trees beyond the beach and tied securely to the trunk of a stout birch and hidden as best as they could manage.

On the short sea voyage to the shore they had decided that they should head back to Mistral City see if they could gather any extra advice from Swampy Bogbeard on looking for the locations of the next two map fragments. Isabel told them that if they headed west from the shore she took them to they would come across the road to Mistral that Xephos and Honeydew had ventured down with Lysander and Old Peculier, after a couple days hiking through the forest.

They began immediately, striding through the forest, using the sun to dictate their heading.

"Ack, that map be nothin' but trouble." Spacker spat as Xephos climbed to the top of a large oak after an hour or two of travel. The tree was taller than most of the others, and Xephos had chosen it in order to scout their area. "A piece much like it caused all manner of chaos in Stoneholm." Honeydew stared up after Xephos as he edged back down the rough bark. "Curses, corruption, ye' know the stuff." Spacker finished as Xephos dropped back down to the leafy floor.

"See anything?" Honeydew asked.

"I don't think so. The forest seems to get thicker further west, I don't know if that's something to do with Swampy's presence in the city ruins or what." Xephos shrugged as the sun dappled through the canopy.

"Maybe," Honeydew mused. "Alright then, come on, ya buggers." he said as they continued westward while the sun reached it's zenith. The woods indeed grew thicker, undergrowth flourishing about them, often caching their legs with thorns. The sky was darkening as the company heard running water not far off, until just ahead of them a small stream crossed their path, a large willow opposite it leaning over the water, curtains of drooping leaves creating a natural tent. Here they decided to make camp, Xephos, drawing his new saber cut across a swathe of the leaves that dropped to the ground, leaving a doorway-like opening for them to enter. "Gentle...dwarves?" Xephos said awkwardly as he beckoned them in. The inside of the willow was littered with fallen leaves that formed a soft carpet, and the stream flowed through the side of the wall of leaves, the entire interior about the size of a large room.

"Aww...This is nice." Honeydew said quietly.

"It is isn't it?" Xephos beamed.

"We should get a fire going before it is too dark." Spacker reminded them, volunteering to fetch firewood.

"He's a bit odd isn't he?" Honeydew whispered after he made sure that Spacker was out of ear-shot.

"I suppose that he's about as normal as a zombie dwarf pirate can be, can't he?" Xephos replied as he drew his sword and set himself to practicing with it, attempting to familiarise himself with fighting using sweeping slashes all linked into the next. "Besides, I thought that you'd be glad to have a fellow dwarf around."

"Yeah well..." Honeydew drifted off as he rolled out their sleeping mats and piled up the leaf litter about them to make three small nests. "He's like I said. Different."

Spacker walked in soon after, thick arms laden with a pile of dried wood, enough to keep the fire burning long after they went to sleep, and dumped them next to a circle of stones that Honeydew had cleared all of the dried leaves from to prevent them from catching fire. Spacker knelt and began piling kindling up, until Honeydew stood up.

"Don't worry about kindling, Spacker, I can just skip that step." he said as he produced from his belt pouches his flint and _bryne-steel _tinder.

"_Bryne-steel."_ Spacker murmured. "If word 'ad gotten out that you had _bryne-steel_ back at the Bay there would've been a war just over who'd get t' kill you for it." at the looks he received from this he replied: "Not me, though. 'Tis a crime to kill another dwarf." yet he watched in awe as Honeydew lit a pile of large branches of dubious dryness with a single strike.

After a small meal of the dried meat that Isabel had supplied them with and refilling their casks from the stream, Spacker suggest that they retire so that they may rise early, in creasing their chances of reaching Mistral's ruin while still in daylight.

"Who's going to keep watch first?" asked Xephos, stifling a yawn.

"That probably isn't nessicary," Spacker replied. "My smell will probably mask yours against any undead that come within a quarter league of here, and scare off any wolves or such."

"Ah...okay..." Honeydew said awkwardly, still unsure, but followed Xephos' example as he shrugged and walked over to his nest of leaves, each nest situated in a different third around the fire.

Spacker fell asleep first, soon beginning to snore in a gurgling fashion, which was soon joined by Honeydew's own snores, yet despite this Xephos fell asleep quickly in the cool shade of the willow as the black of night gathered more, and was soon slumbering after a hard day of trekking through the forest.

That night there were no dreams, and both were woken surprisingly by Spacker, who told them to get ready to continue. Honeydew did his best to hide traces of their presence, spreading out the leaf litter he'd gathered for their nests and even attempted to mask the great gaps that Xephos had sliced out of the willow, cursing as he did so while Xephos repacked all that they had used the previous night, passing around some hard bread.

As they set out west once more the terrain continued to grow more and more difficult to navigate, the vegetation growing thicker and the land hillier.

"I could really do with a cold frosty right now." breathed Spacker as Xephos helped him up the last part of a steep hillock, provoking a bark of laughter from Honeydew.

"Me too Spacker," Xephos agreed as the rested at the summit. "Me too. I could do with a nice cold beer."

"You're a very dwarven dwarf." Honeydew chuckled, before looking west where the hilltop gave a short drop, giving the trees no purchase and leaving a window in the canopy facing nor-west. "Holy shit," Honeydew said stepping closer to the gap.

Out beyond them the forest continued to stretch, growing visibly thicker until about a half mile off to the nor-west-west it developed into what was nearly a jungle, a huge canopy reaching high up into the sky near the foot of a range of mountains that reached far from the west to the east behind them

"I reckon that's where Mistral is." Xephos said, looking to the trees in the distance.

"Shit." Spacker hissed.

"The road will be just over there," Honeydew said, pointing directly precisely west, to just before the huge tangle of Mistral. "So if we continue the way we have been going, we ought to hit the road."

Agreeing on this, they set out to where Honeydew theorised the road would be, Xephos noting the light dusting of snow that had been present in the treetops around the city when they arrived weeks ago was now gone, leaving a slight lingering chill. "At least it's nice weather." he grumbled, looking up at the sun as it began to dip from it's apex.

At at mid-afternoon they finally came upon the road to Mistral City, nearly missing it as they fought through the undergrowth, now teeming with vines and shrubbery. The path was now covered in moss and roots from trees that had grow with alarming speed from Swampy's magic, slowly turning the woods into a jungle.

"Ack!" Look at these bloody trees!" Spacker Spat as he looked up and down the road, staring towards Mistral on his right.

"Where does the path go?" Honeydew asked as he began down the path, past the overgrown remains of the guard-house towards what had become of Mistral.

"It's certainly more...tree-y...than I remember." Xephos said, starting after him. Whatever had survived the inferno was now hidden totally from view by huge trees reaching as high as the sky platforms, vines, creepers and impenetrable undergrowth that sprouted from every available surface.

"It's okay, I have a axe." Honeydew said, drawing his large axe as they neared what at a time had been the gateway to Mistral. "I'll take care of this." he prepared to swing the axe, cutting his way through the green, before Xephos stayed his hand.

"I'd be more careful if I were you, Swampy might get _really_ pissed off with you if you do that." he warned.

"Oh, okay good point. I'll put the axe away." Honeydew winced as he returned the axe to a loop in his belt.

"I'm guessing that means the pub's closed." Spacker sighed as Honeydew resorted to pushing through the undergrowth into the once streets of Mistral.

"Oh gods, is this the path?" Honeydew asked, looking down at the cracked stone at his feet, plants of all creeds growing beneath them. "It's all mossy and overgrown."

"How are we going to get up to Swampy's grove-" Xephos asked, tripping in a rut, falling into Honeydew.

"The trees look tall enough to get us up there." Spacker grunted as they snaked around a trunk large enough it would take eight men holding hands to circumference it.

What Spacker had said about the previous night of reaching Mistral with light to navigate her soon became obsolete, the canopy above them so thick that all light was drained till they were left in the dimness. Xephos reckoned that even now they must be beneath the largest of the floating islands where Swampy had taken up residence, which before had been void of life due to lack of light, but this area was even more dense than that which they'd passed through.

"Gods, it's so _dark."_ Honeydew complained, brushing through a thicket to find that they'd reached the direct center of the sector of Mistral that lay under the shadow of the sky platforms. The ground here was mostly bare of vegetation save swathes of moss that covered the ground and huge mushrooms and other fungi that spread from the ground.

"Hang on...this is The Fountains." Xephos said looking around him and noticing the three different stone pools, now green and stagnant, lily-pads filling them, and the smell of decay thick and sweet in the air.

"So the tree that we used to climb up last time must be..." Xephos looked to his left, to a tree between the Pool of Memory and the In Memorium fountain. Following the tree's growth Xephos saw that it grew up far into the air, eventually meeting the sky platform high above. "...Here!" Xephos ran over the mushroom field, feet mashing the fungus into the ground as he headed for the tree.

"Oh, there it is." Honeydew sighed looking at the this trunk, the split that had once separated the tree in two halfway up had seemed to have regrown, the tree's trunk thickening too. "We're going to have to climb this again, aren't we?"

"Yes." Xephos said as Spacker stepped up the the thick tree, having to jump to grab a low branch, yet swiftly began to pull himself farther up the tree without a word.

"_Follow me,"_ Honeydew breathed as he started after his fellow dwarf. _"I'll lead the way."_

"Spacker's beating us up the tree." Xephos laughed as he passed Honeydew, looking up as he wound through the branches, the slight wind hardly stirring the thickened tree, he looked up to see how far ahead Spacker had gotten, then hastily averted his gaze when he saw that Spacker wasn't wearing anything under his kilt.

"He's very agile for an undead dwarven pirate...man?" Honeydew noted.

The branches all the way up were thick enough to fully support their weight, and long enough for the company to shimmy across them to the mouth of the sky dock that now resembled a mossy cave, where Spacker sat, waiting with his legs dangling over the edge into the open canopy below. They gathered on the edge to rest a while before braving an encounter with Fumblemore's brother, Xephos walking to the back of the tunnel and following as it turned right, opening to another dock mouth, facing out towards the city entrance and the road they'd come from.

"Gods, there's _definitely_ more trees than last time we were here." Xephos groaned as Honeydew and Spacker walked up behind him, staring out over the city, of which there was no sign of as the thick vegetation growing here now joined seamlessly with the woods outside, which in turn were too becoming thicker.

"Woah, If you remember, Xephos, this used to be a big bustling city, but look at it now. It's more like a park." Honeydew said as Spacker grunted.

"It's not really a park, it's more like a flipping _jungle."_ Xephos looked around at the highest trees, reaching higher than where they now stood, the majority of the canopy reached halfway up to the sky-platform from the ground and expanding like a sea of green with spires poking out every so often. "Can't even see anything but canopy."

"Gods, what if we stop the sand to only have Swampy cover the world in a fucking jungle?!" Honeydew exclaimed.

"We will have to sort that out later, because a forest is probably better than an endless desert when you think about it." Xephos turned. "Come on, let's go and see him." he said as with a purpose they followed Xephos to the doorway carved into the wall near the corner of the two docks, a set of stairs spiraling up to Swampy's Grove.

"Is this the way?" Honeydew asked behind Xephos. "It's not getting any lighter up there."

"This _is_ the way we came up last time." Xephos pressed on until, eventually some small amount of light eventually began filtering down the stairs, and then they opened up into leaves. The once open area was now covered in very thick plant growth two yards or so off the ground, making the grove nearly totally dark and impossible to walk through.

"Oh gods, it's totally overgrown." Xephos groaned. "Swampy's going to be around somewhere, though."

"Where?" asked Honeydew, looking up.

"I don't know, you should maybe cut our way through." Xephos stepped aside as Honeydew pushed past, short sword out and beginning to hack his way through the vegetation, when a familiar thin voice floated through the trees.

"Get out of my forest, man!" Swampy yelled.

"Oh gods, not again!" Honeydew yelled as suddenly the vegetation parted by magic, and out of the undergrowth flew Swampy Bogbeard, dirty, angry, and wielding his large, heavy staff.

"Swampy!" Xephos and Honeydew both yelled, expecting the druid to recognise them and stop his charge, but instead he fell on Xephos, smashing him across the head with the butt of his staff.

"Ow, stop-calm down!" Xephos yelled, Honeydew swinging out and punching Swampy back.

"Calm down!" Honeydew shouted too.

"It's us!" Xephos panted, touching his forehead, where a lump was already forming.

Spacker spat.

"Ack, this were an inn but weeks ago!" he growled, looking at Swampy, measuring him up with anger and disgust.

"Oh...it's you!" Swampy Bogbeard said after a moment of regaining his balance, putting down his staff, and the leaves all around them stretched up, out of the way by magic, forming a dome of twigs and leaves around them.

"You crazy bastard." Xephos sighed, looking up. He wasn't even able to see the sky, yet despite this, some mall amount of light trickled through the canopy.

"Have you got the map?" asked Swampy.

"Yes!" Xephos exclaimed, nodding.

"Yes, that's two now, we've got two." Honeydew agreed.

"Excellent, man!" Swampy nodded. "One down, two more to go, man! Two more to go!"

"We found one in the Pirate-y Bay." Xephos said. "Now two more."

"Two more..." Honeydew scratched his shortened beard. "So there's the one we started with, we came here, we needed three more, and now we've found another one, so we need two more."

"Right?" Xephos shrugged.

"Man in red, man in blue...underneath, you'll find the clue." Swampy suddenly said, voice

clear and strong as he bestowed another riddle onto them.

"What?" asked Xephos.

"What did ye say?" Spacker cringed.

Swampy suddenly returned to his regular being, looking up at them. "What?" he asked.

Honeydew repeated the rhyme, scratching his beard again.

"It's like a children's rhyme..." Xephos pondered the meaning too, trying to think of whom it may refer to. "...Isn't it?"

"It's not a rhyme, Xephos, it's a riddle." Honeydew frowned. "Jock wore red, it could have been him? But what about a man in blue? It's an enigma."

"I didn't say anything!" Swampy said aloud. "Now bugger off!" he pointed his staff at the stairway.

"What, but where do we go?" asked Xephos.

"You're messing up my forest!" Swampy yelled.

"Alright, thank you, Swampy." Xephos said turning. "Let's get out of here." he whispered to Honeydew.

"Okay, thanks, you've been a good help, you crazy, bastard." Honeydew whispered the last as he led the way back down the stairway.

"Don't defile any land or I'll find you and unleash nature's wrath!" Swampy called after them, as Spacker took up the rear.

"Sheesh, I knew his brother Fumblemore back when I was adventuring with Verigan." he hissed as they entered the Docks beneath the grove. "their tankards were half-full and a bit frothy, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, gods, it's starting to get dark." Xephos looked out at the sky, chuckling at Spacker's statement. The sky was darker than when they'd entered the grove, and the sun was likely nearing the hills to the south. "What are we going to do? Take shelter in a house or something below?"

"That's probably a good idea." Honeydew agreed.

"Hold on, doesn't Spacker know where we should go?" Xephos turned to the undead dwarf, properly addressing for the first time. "You said something about a map yesterday, right?"

"That's right," Spacker seemed glad that someone was paying him some mind. "There was a piece in my home." he started for the tree that led to the forest floor. "Follow me, and we'll be at Stoneholm in no time."

"What?" Honeydew asked as he went after Spacker with Xephos as the dwarf began to balance his way across a branch leading closer to the trunk, holding one above him for balance. "Stone-holm?"

"Stoneholm!" Xephos said. "A Dwarf Hold, like Dwergholm, Honeydew. More dwarves!"

"Of course! Good old...Stoneholm." Honeydew frowned. "There's a Hold _here?"_ he said softly to himself.

"Well it's about to get _very_ dark now, so it's about the perfect time to head out from the safety of this floating island." Xephos waited for Honeydew to reach the trunk of the tree before putting his weight onto the branches.

"I'm not sure that I want to be going down there, Xephos."

"Well, we're protected by a zombie dwarf, so what's the worst that could happen?"

"We could get bombed-up by a load of angry creeps." Honeydew said as he put his foot onto a branch below him, heading after Spacker.

Beneath the canopy it was as dark as if it were night, even though there was still a few minutes of daylight left, and they stepped almost blindly behind Spacker as he headed back out the way they'd came, pushing through the trees past the burnt out wreckage of buildings, now covered in ivy and saplings struggling to grow in the dark.

"So are we following you?" asked Xephos, pressing near Spacker. "Where are you taking us?"

"The path to Stoneholm is nearby." Spacker said. "I can find it and take us there, where we'll find your map."

"_Follow you, you'll lead the way."_ Honeydew grinned.

"Brilliant." Xephos sighed.

Spacker led them back out the main entrance to the tree covered path of the Mistral Road, and followed the road from the trees to the right of it, Spacker searching for something.

"I hope he knows where he's going." Honeydew whispered to Xephos, Spacker overhearing.

"This was easier before the trees." he said, defending himself.

"It was a lot easier, wasn't it?" Honeydew mumbled.

Xephos could almost swear he heard a voice on the wind crying after them: "Don't you touch those trees, man!"

"He's completely lost isn't he?" Xephos mouthed to Honeydew as Spacker stopped and looked off into the trees in the dying night before continuing along the roadside. "He's wild. He's an absolute wildcard."

"Ah!" Spacker suddenly cried out, stopping.

Xephos and Honeydew looked past him, and found themselves standing beside the guard house next to the road.

"Oh, this used to be the old Guard Post on the outskirts of the city, do you remember?" Xephos asked Honeydew.

"Yes." he replied.

"The trail is just this way." Spacker interjected, continuing west from the post, where another stone road was barley visible from the vegetation covering it. "Follow this and we could be a Stoneholm by tomorrow's sunup."

"So we're going this way?" Honeydew said, following his fellow dwarf with his odd shambling gait, somehow able to place his feet without stumbling in the night, the sun's last rays gliding down past the horizon to the south.

"This is totally unsafe." Xephos complained, brushing the pommel of his sword. "There could be anything out here." he listened intently as they continued through the trees, barely able to see Honeydew ahead of him. Then Spacker gave a cry as he stopped. "The road is out!" he cried in anger. Ahead of them the path dropped away and no trees grew, and in the growing dark ahead they could just see the earth was ruptured with craters and holes, and before them there stood a sign, unreadable in the night.

"What does that sign say?" asked Honeydew trying to peer at it.

"_Danger, Minefield."_ Spacker read.

"Oh dear," Honeydew said, then looked at Spacker. "Wait...how did you read that?" he asked the undead dwarf.

"One o' the few perks o' bein' undead." Spacker replied. "We're going t' have t' hike it, _harr."_

"Oh good." Xephos groaned as Spacker started off, calling for them to follow closely and try not to step on any pressure plates as he led them ridge to ridge across the minefield's craters.

"My sense of direction 'as gotten worse since I got 'it by that ballista bolt," Spacker panted as he looked around, then led them off again, leaving the other two slipping as they tried to see ahead, even Honeydew's dwarven eyes hardly piercing the dark. Finally Spacker brought them to the other side of the minefield, intact, if not breathless.

"There's th' path." Spacker said, walking back towards the trees and following the stone path once more.

"Thank gods, it feels a lot safe-Ooo!" Honeydew teetered on the edge of an apparently rogue crater in the road which he had not seen Spacker side-step. "Maybe not." he said as Xephos pulled him back.

"I don't see why there'd be mines on th' ol' dwarf path." Spacker said, sounding troubled. "Who'd put 'em there? An' why?"

This thought troubled all of them for the next few minutes as them continued once more though the dark, which now grew near complete, Spacker refusing to allow them to light torches.

"It's very quiet out." Xephos said as they came near a hill. They'd been out in the dark nearly an hour, and not seen nor heard any mobs at all.

"It is," Honeydew agreed in front of him. "It's serene. Maybe something scared them away..?"

"Oh gods," Xephos looked about, more nervous. "Don't say that."

"It's probably me." Spacker said. "Zombies don't seem t' like th' smell o' me, and skeletons, spiders an' creepers tend to keep clear." he elaborated at looks from the two.

He led them closer to the hill where the path passed through the hill in a wide, tall tunnel carved through the hillside. They entered just as the first drops of rain began to fall, and by the time they followed the tunnel's sharp turn to the right, it was pounding down to the hilltop. The tunnel continued about fifty yards after turning, and they emerged out into the pouring rain, a the forest strangely reluctant to infringe of the path, instead keeping to the left, while on their right a large black surfaced lake spread in a great curving circle. Upon the far bank, there sat structures of stone resting on the shore, from one, shaped like a dome, there shore two lights across the water, white and bright, reflecting across the water and rain.

"Woah!" Honeydew called after sighting it, stopping.

"Oh, wow." Xephos said after he looked across the lake to the lights and what as far as he could make out in the light was a large stone house, very faint light issuing from the windows. "What is that?"

"Follow me," Spacker called over the loud rain in irritation. "we'll be at Stoneholm in no time."

"We _can't_ just ignore this!" Honeydew complained, motioning across the water.

"Can't we go over there?" asked Xephos, but Spacker just turned and walked off, expecting them to follow. "I guess not." Xephos sighed, starting after the dwarf.

"We can't just ignore this, can we?" Honeydew looked back across the water before following Xephos. "We _can't_ just ignore this!"

"I don't know," Xephos caught up with Spacker as the undead dwarf followed the road, which followed the curve of the lake, falling under the shelter of tree, sapping the rain somewhat. "Let's see where Spacker's going. He might lead us to some shelter."

"_Follow me," _Spacker chanted. _"I'll lead the way!"_

Honeydew made a face. "Hang on, that's my line!" he protested.

"No it's not," Xephos said. "It's an ancient dwarven phrase, if I remember correctly."

"Oh, well, yeah. But I liked saying it!"

As they followed the road about they saw through the trees on the lakeside the lights growing closer as they continued down the road.

"We might be going there anyway." Xephos said back to Honeydew. "Is that place Stoneholm?" he asked Spacker. It had not looked at all like Dwergholm, the only other Dwarf Hold he'd seen. Dwegholm had been out in the middle of a desert, surrounded on three sides by the mountains from which it was carved, with huge stone walls surrounding it, and much of the city held in catacombs beneath the top level. Spacker gave no answer, but the buildings Xephos saw did not look like a Dwarf Hold even remotely without a large wall.

Spacker led them on to a crossroads eventually, the path on the left seemed to lead to the building's they'd seen after crossing over a small bridge, while the path on the right, where Spacker led them, continued into the dark and rain.

"I can't see a bloody thing." Xephos said, casting a forlorn glance back at the fading lights of the left path, yet when he turned back to the path, there came a crash of thunder followed by a searing bolt of lightning, illuminating the road, and the barricade that crossed it. Seeing it, Spacker stopped dead, ten yards off, then ran towards it awkwardly, followed by Honeydew and Xephos.

"What is it?" asked Honeydew.

"No..." Spacker groaned. "The road is out. How shall I find my way back to Stoneholm?"

"What? Now hold on!" Xephos said, briefly reaching into his pocket, brining forth a pebble of glowstone, the sudden light emanating from the rock seemed blinding after the lengthy darkness, yet it lit up the scene enough. Before Spacker there stood a wooden barricade, blocking the road and on it a notice, nearly disintegrated by the rain, yet still readable.

"_Stoneholm road closer due to creeper attacks and activity. Please report to- _Skylord Jasper!-_for more information."_ Xephos read. "Jasper!?" he gaped after finishing. "Is he back there at those buildings?" he turned to look back holding his glowstone aloft, when a black shape leapt at him out of the dark.

"Spider!" Honeydew yelled as Xephos side-stepped it's pounce. Spacker suddenly turned from the sign, ripping his cleaver-like falchion from it's scabbard, bringing it down with earthshaking force and a cry of anger on the spider, nearly ripping it in two. By the light of the glowstone Honeydew and Xephos saw him properly from the first time in hours, his matted brown-orange beard wet and eyes so red they looked as though they would glow, but him face was a greenish picture of barely contained rage.

"What's this? Skylord who?" the dwarf spat.

"Jasper! Alright," Honeydew said in anticipation of shelter and a half night of sleep, which after two full nights was the first time in longer than Honeydew cared to remember. "Wait, I though that he was a bad-guy." Honeydew stopped mid stride back down the road. "Was he?" he asked as Spacker and Xephos walked past him, heading for the building.

"I don't know, I think that he _was _ a bit-look, who cares. Let's just go and take refuge in this house or whatever it is." Xephos said, wiping his rain sodden hair out of his face.

"Yes." Agreed Honeydew, and Spacker grunted, clearly keen to get to Stoneholm as quickly as possible.

"It is pouring down, I am soaked to the skin." Xephos said as the reached the small bridge that led to the large house. The bridge, worked from stone, crossed over a small river and led to a large compound ahead. Xephos peered ahead through the sheets of rain. "Gods, look at all of that stuff attacking that building!" For ahead the building they'd seen stared out over the lake to their left, it's walls of high stone, and below a balcony facing out toward the bridge they stood on, there swarmed dozens of agitated mobs, trying to get to something on the balcony. Xephos looked up and through the rain though that he just managed to catch the body of a man slipping through the balcony doorway and back into the house.

"Oh gods," Honeydew breathed after seeing all of the mobs. "We're going to have to run past all of them to get to the front door." he said, eyeing the path that led from the bridge to the lake-front side of the house.

"Alright." Xephos nodded, the mobs below the balcony still oblivious that whoever had stood there was now gone. "We need t go, now!" he said.

They ran, keeping as low as they could while avoiding alerting the zombies, spiders and skeletons of their presence, stopping low by a flower patch or some shrubbery once and a while until they rounded the corner of what they could now see was a mansion, and out of sight of the mobs.

Honeydew sighed. "Okay. push on, into the house." he said, starting for the front door of the large manor, long bay windows either side of the entrance.

"Uhh...Spacker," Xephos said after a few seconds. "Won't those mobs be able to umm...smell you?" he asked.

"We should get inside." was all that Spacker said in reply, just as alerted gurgles came from around the corner.

They hurried up to the door which they found to be only locked by a logic gate, which the simple minds of mobs could not open, and entered the manor.

"Oh thank gods we're out of the rain it was horrible out there-" Honeydew said as he entered, stopping in the doorway, resulting in the other two pushing him through, where they found standing before them a huge man, wearing only a grass skirt, and a wooden mask, the mask decorated with paint around the mouth and eyes, and multicoloured motifs painted onto his toned chest and abdomen. "-what on earth is this." Honeydew finished.

"Enter please. Master upstairs." the big man said in a deep voice that sounded like the thrumming of rain on a set of drums.

_Author's Notes:_

Good morning, evening, and afternoon, everybody.

God almighty, I'm back and what a relief it is to get another chapter out. For those who didn't read on my Twitter, my poor laptop gave up the ghost recently (R.I.P Big Mac. May 2012-April 2013. Lest we forget) and I only recently acquired a new one. Fortunately, It's been Holiday Tiem in New Zealand, and I had a full week to just write, and I now have another, so god willing I might actually get stick to my "a chapter a week" policy!

Goodbye!

~O.J

P.S: I just discovered that after 3028 pages I am nearly able to touch-type.

Twitter: /OJvanderBeek

Yogs Forum Page: . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread -(o-j-van-der-beek)


	26. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter26

Chapter 26: The Mansion

The mansion's foyer was a large, square room, at the rear two staircases either side of a fountain led up to a mezzanine floor that snaked around the back and two side walls, leading to second floor rooms either side of the foyer. The entire room smelt of burning incense and scented candles, with pink and purple fabric draped from the rafters and a huge rug filling the stone floor, it's colour blue with a pink "J" woven into it and huge male gender-symbol painted in, once again pink, on the back wall.

"What is going on?" Xephos asked as the huge tiki-man ran headed quickly for the stairs.

"This place seems odd...I don't like it." Honeydew said as Spacker agreed with a gagging noise as he inhaled the smell.

As they mounted top of the stairs, the big man stopped as a strangely familiar voice called out.

"Um Bongo! Come fetch daddy's coat, the rain has quite ruined it!" said Skylord Jasper's high effeminate voice as he pushed through a door to the right of the stairs on the second floor. "Now don't make me-Ah!" he cried as he noticed who accompanied his big manservant. _"You two!?" _he backed into a corner of the room.

The Skylord that stood before them seemed totally different to the one that they'ed last seen at Mistral weeks ago. The man who stood in the corner wore a red overcoat with golden trim, buttons and epaulettes and a rainbow patterned armbands around each bicep. he still wore his skylord goggles around the top of his head, his mustache running down to either side of his chin, yet his eyelids were covered in blue eyeshadow and he wore eyeliner too.

"Skylord Jasper." Xephos said evenly.

"Jasper? Why are you hiding in the corner, there?" Honeydew asked, eyebrow raised.

"Hi-hiya heroes!" Jasper stammered, eyes flitting between them and falling with alarm on Spacker. "It's great to see you're alive!" he said, attempting to sound jubilant.

"You're _happy_ to see us?" Honeydew said, remembering the Jasper that had chased them about his house with a whip when they stole his valuable record.

"And what's up with your outfit as well?" Xephos asked, noticing the several sever changes since their last meeting.

"I don't know, but he look's fabulous!" Honeydew replied.

"Welcome to the Skylord's Summer Retreat!" Jasper stepped further out of the corner towards them. "Do you like it? Suave, eh?" he gave a twirl.

"It's...great..." Xephos said uncertainly looking around at the gaudy room.

"Very dapper." Honeydew agreed, and Spacker stayed in silence.

"You look a bit like Freddy Mercury." Xephos let slip, hoping that nobody would hold it against him for mentioning the know homosexual minstrel, famed for dressing similarly to Jasper.

"Oh my god he does!" Honeydew laughed. "You do!" he said to Jasper, who seemed to take this in good grace. "It's uncanny."

"Well, I'm sure you have many questions." Jasper tittered.

"...Do you like bees?" Honeydew asked after a moment, trying to hold back laughter, something Xephos did not manage.

"Do you have a map fragment?" Xephos finally managed as Jasper, Spacker and Um Bongo stared at him in confusion while he laughed.

"A map fragment? I fear I have no idea." Jasper replied as thunder flashed outside while the rain poured down of the high roof in a furious drum beat.

"Wait, why would he have the map?" asked Honeydew more quietly to Xephos.

"The riddle: _"Man in red, man in blue."_?" Xephos hissed. _"Jasper and Lysander."_

"Oh... Lords of the Sky..." Honeydew said, remember the original riddle. "It was such a cryptic clue, Xephos, I had no idea that it was referring to the Skylords." he chuckled, turning back to Jasper. "Are there any other Skylords here?" Honeydew asked as another bolt of lightning flashed outside.

"...That we can talk to?" Xephos added warily.

There was a moment of uncertainty from Jasper before he spoke again, lightning striking nearby.

"Lysander is downstairs..." he said quietly as the light flashed across his face. "I locked him up for burning down Mistral City! Say..." Jasper narrowed his eyes, despite standing against three armed men, they all felt threatened by this. _"You_ didn't have anything to do with that, did you? When Mistral was on fire, I went to his house and found him unconscious in the basement. So I brought him here and tied him up!"

"But Lysander didn't burn it, he wasn't to blame!" Xephos said. "It was a pirate named Jock Fireblast, he was serving Israphel, they planted the evidence in Lysander's house!"

"He was _framed."_ Honeydew added.

Jasper shook his head. "Proof! I demand proof!" he yelled.

Honeydew suddenly pulled off his pack and reached in, pulling out and throwing onto the ground between the a plain looking flint and steel.

"This here is the flint and steel Jock used to burn down Mistral City and Barbeque Bay." he announced, which surprised Xephos, who'd seen Jock firing flames from his hands, but no flint and steel anywhere.

"That is not proof enough, dwarf!" Jasper shrieked.

"_Check for finger-prints!"_ Honeydew pressed, glancing behind him to see if he could locate a basement door.

"I don't know if people have print dust outside of the Dwarf Holds, do they?" Xephos whispered to Honeydew. "This is going to be really hard to prove."

"Can we see Lysander?" Honeydew asked. "We may need to question him."

"You may not speak with him, he's far too dangerous!" Jasper replied. "But now, it is late!" he suddenly announced, making a reckless flourish. "You must sleep, I'll answer your questions in the morning." Jasper motioned to Um Bongo and the huge man pushed past the three, leading them to a doorway on the right side of the mansion.

"What?" Honeydew asked, looking at the room that they were led into. "Oh yes, _let's all go to bed." _he added sarcastically.

Xephos, Spacker and he stood in a long bedroom with three beds pressed up against the far wall, small tables and furnishings about the room too, lit only by the light streaming through the doorway.

"I must ask that you do not enter the basement," Jasper asked of them as he and Um Bongo stood in the doorway. "The paint is still damp."

"Okay," Xephos replied, looking intently at Um Bongo, wondering if he would be put on guard to stop them sneaking into the basement, for not one second did he truly believe that the paint was the reason they were not wanted in the basement.

"Oh boy, I am tired-y dwarf!" Honeydew said too casually, walking over to the bed furthest right, with a yawn. "I'm sooo tired."

"And please keep in your own beds." Jasper said with a nod as he turned and left the room, Spacker, Xephos and Honeydew watching as he left, Um Bongo reluctantly close behind.

"Yes, let's all go to sleep." Honeydew continued, making sure that he could be overheard by Jasper, as he laid back on his bed, eyes drifting shut. _"Then we can sneak out, and find Lysander."_ he said in a secret whisper.

"I agree," Xephos nodded, walking to the door and peering out it as he opened it a crack, watching as Jasper alone entered the door below the venus symbol on the rear wall. "We need to break out or at least talk to Lysander. I mean he might still have had a part in burning Mistral, though I'm not sure. Jasper didn't believe you when you showed him the flint and steel. Where'd you get those, anyway? I never saw Jock using them. Honeydew?" he turned and saw that his friend was still lying sprawled out on his bed, face up, snoring softly, sputtering when Xephos roused him with a push.

"What?" Honeydew blinked. "Oh gods, the plan, of course!" he sat up and gathered himself.

"Heroes, if we may continue." Spacker said, he who hadn't said a word since arriving.

"Yes." Xephos nodded. "Where did you find that flint and steel you showed Jasper?" he asked, peering back at the door to make sure that no eaves were being dropped.

"Those? They were a spare pair that I had in my pack, I knew he wouldn't have fingerprint-dust, I just wanted to see if he would fall for it. Now, what's the plan?" Honeydew stood and crossed his arms in the half-light.

"This is all very suspicious, I'll cover for ye', an' ye' fellas 'ave a poke about an' see what ye can find." Spacker suggested. "I'll stay an' make some sleepy-sleepy-dwarf sounds."

"A great idea!" Honeydew agreed, as he and Xephos headed out the door as quietly as they could manage, where they stood for a while before heading for the stairs leading down from the mezzanine.

"We need to be quiet and keep a look-out for Um Bongo, I think he might be on guard." Xephos whispered as they descended onto the ground floor, eyeing Jasper's door behind them, when Honeydew stopped.

"Uh, Xephos, look at the front door." Honeydew said quietly. Xephos looked ahead and right before them at the entrance the heavy doorway lay open to the outside, waiting for anything to enter. "It's open."

"Oh gods, we didn't shut the front door," Xephos said in a barely audible whisper, hurrying across the rug to the door. "That's our fault."

"It's okay, I don't think there's anything out there that's dangerous." Honeydew jested as Xephos stood on the threshold, closing the door, when a creeper not three yards away turned as it clicked shut.

"Yeah, just a creeper right there." Xephos sighed, recoiling as the creeper skittered up to the one of the small windows either side of the door, pressing it's goo-covered face up to the glass.

Honeydew gave a little nervous laugh as he took a step closer. "It is literally the other side of the door," he waved at it. "Hello...hello. _That's a very nice mansion you have there."_ he said quietly as Xephos turned to one of the doors on the right wall, a plaque above it labeling it to be the kitchen.

"I wonder if the entrance to the basement is in here?" Xephos asked as Honeydew followed him into the large room filled with benches and ovens.

"The kitchen? Really-" Honeydew began, before Xephos motioned for him to be quiet. He then pointed slowly over to the end of one of the benches against the far wall where lying on a pile of rags like a dog was Um Bongo, sound asleep without even a snore. Xephos motioned Honeydew to exit back out of the room and into the foyer, where they resumed breathing.

"I thought there may be a cellar or something in there." Xephos said. "But it looks like that's where Jasper makes Um Bongo sleep."

"Poor Um Bongo," Honeydew mumbled. "Do you think we could free him too?"

"The door was unlocked and a open, he could have run if he wanted to."

"Maybe he's scared of Jasper so much that he doesn't want to run?" suggested Honeydew, as a racketing snore drifted out of their room into the foyer. Spacker was hard at work.

"We can't risk trying to take him with us. He might warn Jasper." Xephos nodded at where Um Bongo slept.

They decided to try the doors on the other side of the foyer, heading across to the first on the left, where another sign hung above the door.

"_Fungeon."_ Xephos said, trying the word. _"Fun-geon._ Does that say fungeon?" he asked.

"Fungeon?" Honeydew said questioningly as Xephos pushed the heavy door open.

They stepped into the next room, finding themselves at the top landing for a set of wide stone stairs heading downwards, more pink fabric hanging from the dark walls and ceiling.

"Oh my gods, what's that!?" Honeydew yelped as they started down the stairs, for upon the back wall of the landing there was hung a large portrait of none other than Skylord Jasper, bedecked in fishnet and tight leather, a rainbow gracing the canvas in the background. "What's that?" Honeydew laughed as they reached the bottom.

"It's a picture of a sexy skylord." Xephos chuckled, noticing the artist had made Jasper decidedly more muscular than in reality.

They turned from the painting to a door that was on the right wall of the landing, a large iron banded specimen with heavy timbers.

"This looks like it could be the place." Xephos said, pausing with a hand hovering on the handle. They had not seen Lysander in weeks, and he'd likely been locked in "fungeon" for most of that. He hesitated only a few more moments before steeling himself and pushing through.

The fungeon's naming and purpose soon became apparent. The floor of the small room was covered in soft black and purple checkerboard carpet, lit by a single lantern, a large rack hung on the left wall, covered in whips, collars and ropes. But to the right, behind a wall of bars in a cell filled with padded boxes of different shapes and a solitary damaged-looking bed there stood a man. Lysander looked as though all the nights he'd been away from them he hadn't slept a minute, he was stooped and shaking, yet the most surprising thing about him was his garb. The once proud Skylord Lysander stood fearful in his cell in the same clothes he'd worn when last they met goggles and hat included, unwashed and unchanged, save his shirt, which in place of which he wore a harness of black leather a studs, a collar and a ball-gag, his hands too, bound.

"_Oh. My. Gods!"_ Xephos said in shock as Lysander suddenly realised that his visitors were not his abuser, but his old companions. He rushed up to the bars of his cell, trying to speak around the gag in his mouth, only resulting in loud murmurs.

"Ah..." Honeydew said as he stood beside Xephos for a moment. "Um..."

"Is there a way out of this?" Xephos asked Lysander after finally recovering and reaching through the bars to undo the clasp on the gag around Lysander's head, something that he was unable to do with bound hands, which Xephos too promptly freed by awkwardly cutting through them with his sabre.

"Here, Xephos there's a keyhole here in the wall." Honeydew said as Lysander was freed. Xephos turned to look at the iron lock protruding from the wall, heavy and technical looking.

"Oh, gods, it's you!" Lysander's familiar deep, rich voice gasped. "Wait...no, I mean-"

"Lysander!" Honeydew greeted, trying to hug the big man through the bars. "We're here to rescue you!" the tall dwarf quickly rushed through a brief explanation of what had happened since their parting, making a point of telling how they'd found the real arson of Mistral, Jock, and his defeat.

"Gods, Jasper wouldn't tell me anything." Lysander rubbed his, now very thick indeed, mustache. "Listen though, you've got to get me out! Jasper kidnapped me on my way out of Mistral when it was afire."

"How do we _do_ that?" asked Xephos.

"Jasper sleeps with the key, it's in his room!" Lysander informed them, the only time that they'd ever seen the big man plead.

"He sleeps with the key?!" Xephos said in despair, turning seriously to Honeydew. "You know what's going to happen, Honeydew? You're gonna have to-"

"I'm gonna have t' murder him with this axe!" Honeydew pulled his diamond battle-axe out of his belt loop, grinning.

"No!" Xephos laughed. "You're gonna have to _seduce_ him, with your dwarvish-"

"What."

"...Charms."

"_What."_ Honeydew said again, the grin long since gone from his face.

"Yeah, and while he's sleeping, you can take the key." Xephos was the one grinning now. "Or we could just sneak in and try to steal it." he turned to the door. "We'll be right back Lysander, for goodness sake."

"Also, see if you can find me some clothes." Lysander called as they left.

"So I have to _seduce _Jasper-Oh gods!" Honeydew jumped when the creeper they'd seen before now pressed itself up against the large bay window at the top of the stairs.

"Gods, it's that creeper again." Xephos sighed. "Don't let him in." he added as the creeper tried to break the window by head butting it."

"_Hello..." _Honeydew said to the mob in his best creeper voice. _"That's a very nice fungeon you have there..._ Look, go away."

"It's terribly gaudy, isn't it, this decoration?" Xephos commented as he and Honeydew headed warily for Jasper's room up the mezzanine stairs, eyeing the rug, paint and fabric. "Terribly gaudy. I don't really like what he's done with the place to be honest."

"Spacker's just in bed!" Honeydew suddenly said in quiet alarm, pointing over to the door to their room where Spacker's legs could be seen on the bed, loud snore coming from the room. "I thought he was supposed to be working!"

"He's clearly like you and just falls asleep at random." Xephos jeered as Honeydew resentfully opened the door to Jasper's room.

"_Shhh..."_ Honeydew warned as he walked warily into Jasper's room, not a sound being made. The room was high ceilinged and mostly glass floored, much of the room hanging over another lake or sea on the rear side, a wooden mezzanine above one half of the room, stairs leading up to it on either walls of the room, a huge four-poster bed in the centre of the mezzanine. From where they stood they could not see which side of the bed Jasper slept on, if even he slept at all.

"_This way." _Honeydew mouthed, heading for the right stairs, crouching, allowing Xephos to pass him.

Xephos headed up the stairs cautiously, one step at a time, his crouch exaggerating with every one. He neared the top, when on the other side of the bed he saw the shiny to of a bald head as he raised himself up, Jasper was still awake, and standing over the other side, doing god knows what. Xephos ducked dow quickly, making no sound.

"_What?" _ mouthed Honeydew, sweating.

"_He's right there." _Xephos mouthed back. _"Awake."_

"_The key."_ Honeydew asked.

Xephos motioned for him to come look for himself, the dwarf creeping slowly up alongside him, blinking when he saw that at Jasper's bedside there lay a pile of saddles that looked far too small for a horse or pig, a whip a another ball-gag beside them.

"Oh my gods-" Honeydew said at the sight, loudly, stopping himself too late, Xephos was already heading for the door, and Jasper looked up, noticing him.

"Ooo, Dwarf, might you try my new rope with me?" Xephos heard Jasper ask from the other side of the door.

"No, Jasper, no!" Xephos heard Honeydew shout. "No! This is a terrible misunderstanding!"

Xephos was suddenly pushed aside by the door being shoved open violently as Honeydew hurled himself violently at it, barreling out into the foyer as turning to slam the door firmly shut.

"Oh gods, what happened?" Xephos asked from the floor, struggling to hold back laughter as Honeydew leant against the door.

"I have seen things no dwarf should ever see." Honeydew said flatly.

"Alright, get your pick out, we'll break him out the old fashioned way." Xephos got to his feet and ran for the fungeon, Honeydew very close behind.

"Did you find it?" asked Lysander as they re-entered.

"No." Honeydew replied, bringing a sigh from Lysander.

"We don't need any of this key nonsense." Xephos replied. "But using the pick will bring Jasper down here, so we need to think of another-"

"Oh!" Honeydew exclaimed, abandoning the entire idea of stealth. "I've got an idea..." he pulled at that moment one of the last sticks of dynamite from his bandoleer.

"NO!" Lysander cried, leaping to the back of his cell and away from the dwarf.

"No, no, no, no!" Xephos held up his hands. "This is an enclosed space."

"What do you mean!?" Honeydew said, sounding offended.

"It will alert Jasper, if we don't all get blown to the Aether!" Lysander protested.

"Look, Lysander, it will be fine!" Honeydew said. "Trust me! Trust me, I know what I'm doing!"

"Hang on, I could see if I can pick the lock," Xephos drew one of his flint arrows from his quiver, walking over to the lock on the wall. "We could've just done this in the first place."

"...And avoided all of that scarring horror." Honeydew shuddered.

Xephos knelt and tried to insert the arrowhead into the lock, but the flint broad-heads were too large, so he requested one of Honeydew's bolts, arrows, which he'd converted into bodkin headed bolts during the night on their way to Mistral the day before last. The smaller head fit much more easily and soon Xephos was moving the mechanism of the lock in attempt to find the correct angle. "Hurry," Honeydew advised. "Dawn is nearly here, and Jasper will be awake soon." A few second later and there came a click, then a soft grinding as the entire wall of bars rose high into the ceiling surprisingly quietly, freeing Lysander.

"Ah, freedom!" Lysander cheered, running out of the cage, throwing aside the straps that had been wound about him.

"It's...good to see you again." Honeydew said.

"Damn!" Xephos put in. "You look knackered."

"You must be terribly cold." said Honeydew again.

"Put this on." Xephos offered, turning and grabbing a leather tunic off the rack behind them and throwing it at Lysander, whom was a few sizes to large for it.

"We must hurry out of here, before Jasper notices you've gone." Lysander advised, already pushing out of the door.

"Okay, where are we going?" Xephos asked, following closely.

"We must get to Skyhold." Lysander answered briefly.

"Where-"

"I'm taking the painting." Honeydew suddenly said, passing both of them up the stairs, the portrait of Jasper under an arm. "Don't ask. I want a memento." he added as they passed into the foyer. "Okay," Xephos whispered, looking out the window and noticing the lightening sky. "you two go outside and I'll go get Spacker-"

"Oh my gods, Jasper!" Honeydew suddenly yelled, pointing up at the doorway to Jasper's quarters, where he stood now, looking confused, and furious.

"What are you doing!?" he yelled.

"Run!" Lysander screamed, wrenching open the door and flying out into the dark. Honeydew started after him, the portrait of Jasper catching either side of the frame in the doorway, breaking in half. "Oh shit..." Honeydew whispered before sprinting outside. Xephos turned as he was about to leave, Jasper starting for the stairs. _"Spacker!"_ Xephos yelled before stepping out the door, just as the undead dwarf flew out of his own, sprinting over to Jasper, leaping into the air and reaching up to bring a solid punch across Jasper's face, sending him rolling down the stairs, Spacker leaping over the sprawled Skylord and out the front door, joining the three others outside, Lysander leading them around the left side mansion at a sprint as Jasper's voice followed them. "He's a very naughty boy! He should be punished!"

"Don't stop!" Honeydew yelled as Lysander led them along a path under a grove of pink leaved trees.

"Take-a me with you!" came a deep voice as they looked back to see Um Bongo pelting after them in the heavy rain.

"Run, Um Bongo!" Xephos yelled back to the island man as they emerged out of the trees into a dock beside the mansion, facing out to the sea behind it, a huge ship moored at the wharf.

"Make for the ship!" Lysander instructed, pointing across the dock to a huge ship resting nearby, sails furled. They continued to the other side of the dock, when suddenly all the mobs that had been seen around the mansion earlier fell on them. They ran out from around the side of the mansion, a small army of creepers, zombies and skeletons, heading after them with a burning hatred.

"Get on the ship and make ready to sail!" Xephos yelled, drawing his sword as the mobs came after them, cornering the five between the water and themselves. "I'll try keep them off!" he drew his sabre, holding it as well as he was able, conscious of his ineptitude with the blade.

"And me too!" Honeydew stayed with his friend, waving the others on when they reached the end of the wide dock, the ship's ladder hanging over the edge.

Xephos slashed a wide arc as the first wave fell on him, felling two zombies and a creeper, dodging an arrow sent from a skeleton as Honeydew barreled into the rest of the horde, scattering them, when there came a gap in the rainclouds, and down from above there flared a ray of sunlight. With a cry the undead among the mobs made for the water of back for the pink trees as the sun seared them, turning their flesh and bones to ash. Xephos and Honeydew let them run, clearing a last few creepers and spiders as the huge ship behind them began to move, when at the end of the dock Jasper appeared, running forwards, scourge in hand as he yelled after them.

"He's a very naughty boy!" he cackled manically. "He should be _punished."_

"No!" they heard Lysander call from the deck of the ship as they turned to face the boat. "Get aboard, hurry!" Lysander cried, leaning over the edge.

"Oh shit," Honeydew cried as he ran towards the end of the wharf, where the boat was rapidly pulling away, leaping at the edge for the rope ladder hanging over the edge, grabbing the rungs and pulling himself as Xephos ran alongside the ship from the wharf, waiting for Honeydew to be out of the way, when Jasper called out again, his voice closer than before. "Wait, Lysander!" he pleaded, when he gave his whip a crack. Xephos waited no longer, and leapt for the rope ladder as Honeydew neared the top, but as he reached it he fumbled with the rungs and fell back into the water as the boat swept past.

"Xephos?! _Xephos!"_ Honeydew called down as Xephos surfaced, trying desperately to keep afloat, somewhat regretting never taking off his pack as he struck out for the side of wharf, hoping desperately to be able to make a second jump before the ship cleared the dock. He was already breathing heavily when he pulled himself onto the deck, immediately starting into a run, noticing as he started desperately after the ship once more, dodging away from barrels, that Jasper was now before him, and the ship was beginning to pull away to increases the size of the gap between it and Jasper, when Jasper gave a jump and sailed over the water, catching the ladder and starting up. Xephos looked ahead and saw that he was running out of ground rapidly, and that unless he increased his speed he would miss the ship. Giving a grunt Xephos sprinted even faster down the dock, slowly gaining on the ladder, yet just as rapidly running out of land. In the last few strides of the wharf, Xephos leapt for the corner post, landing with one foot and jumping far outwards, reaching as he flew over the cool water where he landed with a tangle in the ropes.

Breathless, Xephos looked up to see Jasper just above him, reaching the top of the ladder. Xephos fumbled as he began up the ladder, reaching for Jasper's ankle to pull him down, when as the Skylord drew up to the deck Honeydew's fist lashed out and with a gasp the red skylord fell back from the huge ship and into the ocean with a splutter.

"Xephos!" Honeydew yelled, offering Xephos his hand up the last few rungs, which Xephos gladly received. "We thought we'd lost you, there."

"So did I." Xephos panted, looking about the immense deck. The ship had two huge masts, triangular sails now unfurled, and Spacker stood at the wheel, which instead of being located at an aft-castle was upon a raised platform between the two masts, thick enough for four men to circumference holding hands. The fore of the ship was the strangest, however, the front of the deck was squared, and railless with no mizzen, and a great distance along the fore flat and empty, waiting for something to fill it.

"Why? Skylord Lysander!?" Jasper spluttered. They looked over the colossal rim of the ship as it curved away from the bay the Skylord Mansion sat, Jasper treading water, fading further away by the moment. "Lover!" he cried one last time.

Lysander did not look over the ship, staring off down the coast, striding across the deck, past Um Bongo, who still wore his mask, clung to the ship's balustrade.

"Looks like their_ bro-mance_ is over." Xephos sighed as Jasper became a speck far down the coast.

"They were in a fully homosexual relationship, Xephos, there's no pretenses of heterosexuality there." Honeydew snickered.

"Looks like it's the old team back together, minus some and plus others." Xephos turned from the balustrade to where Spacker manned the wheel, eyes set dead forward, Um Bongo walked excitedly about while Lysander was seen disappearing below deck. "What a ridiculous adventure." Xephos sighed.

Spacker brought the huge ship to a halt in a sheltered cove at Lysander's orders, the skylord himself returning on the deck with a hide jerkin that fit far better and a oilskin folder. He requested that the ship be moored with the flat nose facing out to sea, just to the left of a long abandoned lighthouse. Spacker grumbled, saying the ship was too big and poorly designed, yet managed to align it just so before dropping anchor as the day turned to mid-morning, when Lysander called them over to him.

"I found maps below deck, and we can make our way to The Skyhold using them." The Skylord explained, opening the folder he carried, passing out a sheaf of maps around the company. The maps were drawn on brown paper and divided into a grid, showing a large peninsular of land that seemed to chart the land from Terrorvale in the upper left corner to a large square in the lower right that seemed to represent The Wall and Verigan's hold. Upon the map too were marked areas such as Mistral City and Stoneholm, which Spacker had mentioned, yet in the top right corner, seemingly in the middle of the ocean there lay huge structure, consisting of one huge circle the size of a city and four smaller others at each quarter. "In order to get to it we will have to use planes stored below decks." Lysander continued. "Skyhold in the large structure in the middle of the ocean."

"Planes?" Honeydew asked. "What are they?"

"Well, I suppose you could say they are like small airships, but with wings instead of an envelope." Lysander answered, perfectly naturally, to an uncomfortable silence.

Spacker took another look at the map, then broke the silence. "Ah! This map shows the way back to Stoneholm!" he shouted, not waiting for Lysander's permission as he stuffed the map away into his pack, then crossing over to Xephos and Honeydew grasping and shaking their hands in turn. "Please, find me in Stoneholm when you're done with these Sky-Men. I don't much like the sound of these "planes"."

"Oh? So you're leaving." Xephos said as Spacker firmly gripped his hand. "Goodbye then, Spacker." he said again as he shook it.

"Far-well, then." Spacker nodded at Lysander and Um Bongo. "If it's all the same with ye', Skylord, I'll be taking one of ye' boats to shore."

"Far-well Spacker!" Honeydew yelled as they waved Spacker off once they'd got a boat into the water for him and he was shunting off to the shore. "You'll have to show me the best ale-houses in Stoneholm when we get there."

"That's if I don't drink them dry first!" Spacker replied, giving a rare laugh.

"Farewell dead...dwarf...thing. What?" Lysander began, shaking his head and turning to Um Bongo. "And what of you? Do you want to come with us?" he asked.

The island man shook his still masked head. "No. But many thank-you. This map show way home. I go with dead dwarf." he turned to Honeydew. "This dwarf free Um Bongo. I give dwarf _big_ hug!" he then reached out and grabbed Honeydew in a bear-hug, lifting him off his feet and squeezing him until Honeydew hugged him back, grinning.

"Come 'ere you!" Honeydew patted the tribes man as he was set down.

"I go now, bye bye." Um Bongo said behind his mask as he suddenly ran and vaulted over the edge of the ship. Xephos, Honeydew and Lysander ran to the side to see him surface and start swimming with great speed to the shore where Spacker was just pulling his raft onto the shore, a tiny figure on a tiny shore.

"Bye then, Um Bongo. Bye!" Honeydew called.

"Goodbye!" Xephos called too, turning back to face Lysander. "I guess it's just the three of us, then."

Honeydew grinned, "More or less the old team back together." he said.

"Yes." Lysander nodded. "We fly to victory!"

End of Act 3

_Author's Notes:_

_Hi again, it's been a while. School has begun heating up this year, leaving me less and less time to write, so regrettably, I'm going to have to slow my writing right down. This may only be temporary as with our internal assessments coming up we are studying a lot, but after they're over I may have more time, but until then, there's not really going to be any schedule for releases, they'll just come out when they're done. (To be honest, that was pretty much what happened anyway.)_

_Follow on Twitter for updates:_

_(error with the link)_

_And the forum thread for all updates:_

. ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread -(o-j-van-der-beek)


	27. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter27

Chapter 27: To Skyhold

"This way," Lysander said, striding across the long empty rear deck. He stopped at the foot of the second mast, standing on a large wooden platform that looked as though it was able to be lowered into the belly of the odd ship. "Let's see if Jasper has kept the planes." Lysander beckoned Xephos and Honeydew over onto the platform, the two had bemused looks upon their faces.

"Planes?" Honeydew asked. "What's a plane?"

"Well, that's rather difficult to explain." Lysander said absently as he pulled a lever at the base of the platform. The wooden square then smoothly began to slide below decks, the steady turning of cogs accompanied them as they sunk into the ship.

"Try to imagine a boat, or a canoe, with wings, but they don't flap like a bird's." as Lysander talked the elevator took them past a deck that was lined along the walls with small ballistae and supplies. "Instead there's a device on the front much like a windmill, except it works in reverse, instead of the wind turning it, it spins the opposite way of a windmill and pulls itself through the air."

"What? It actually flies?!" Xephos blinked. "How..?"

"We Skylord's have spent years trying to come up with a means of air travel faster than airships. Planes were the result," Lysander beamed as though with pride. "and yes, they do work. You two will likely be the first unofficial people to see them, let alone use them."

The platform was nearly in complete darkness as Lysander finished, the sky a light window above them as the elevator softly clicked into place. They found themselves in a huge empty hollow at the very bottom of the ship, it smelt of old wood and the bitter tang of redstone hung in the air, coming from something unseen in the darkness beyond the shaft of light the three stood in.

"You want us to fly one of these..._planes?"_ Honeydew said, voice a mixture of terror and hidden excitement. "How do we do that?"

"Yeah, wouldn't we need to learn to do this kind of thing?" Xephos asked. "I mean if they're as complicated as I think, then how are we going to work them?"

"Oh, it's rather simple once you get used to it." Lysander said, reaching into his pocket. "It's either this or a three week trek up the coast across an ocean that's half frozen and full of currents that would drown you in a moment."

He removed his hand from his pocket, and in it held a pebble of glowstone, which cast a warm honey coloured light about the room. Lysander stepped further into the darkness and held the stone higher, and near the rear of the ship they could barely make out four objects. Honeydew made to kindle a torch, before Lysander halted him. "Torches in here could damage the planes." he warned, and started for the back of the ship, Honeydew and Xephos staying close to him in the amber glow.

The light reached the planes after little more than five strides, and there in a line stood the aircraft; manifestations of wood and canvas as tall as a prime warhorse and as long as a large canoe. Their bodies were streamlined and at the rear there jutted small fins, in the middle a hole meant for the pilot to sit, and at the front a complicated array of two boards folded up to either side of the seat with a dual bladed propeller at the front. But while the sight of the flying machines was indeed a shock to Xephos and Honeydew, the extremely gaudy paintwork of the plane did little to remedy it.

"It seems that Jasper has done some renovations." Lysander groaned as he studied the planes. He then walked between two of the planes and pulled out what appeared to Xephos to be a large sack. "We'll be needing this for fuel if we want to make it." Lysander grunted as he tossed Honeydew the glowstone so he could carry the sack with two hands.

"What's in there?" Xephos asked Lysander as Honeydew began to walk down the line of planes, staring at each.

"A special kind of fuel that we made by grinding up coals and adding pitch and a little sulphur." Lysander replied as he lugged the sack back to the elevator.

"That sounds more like a bomb than fuel." Xephos said worriedly, the light fading as Honeydew traveled further away. He turned from Lysander and went after the dwarf to find him at the last plane in the row, a tall contraption painted in a pattern akin to a grid of diamonds painted like a rainbow.

"Do you have any idea how this would work?" Xephos asked. "I assume that being a dwarf you know about how these things work."

Honeydew shook his head.

"This is way beyond anything even in the experimental workshops at Dwergholm. And we didn't even have airships!" Honeydew sighed. He stared a moment longer before putting his foot onto a step below the cockpit and started hoisting himself inside.

"_What are you doing!?"_ Xephos hissed, causing Honeydew to freeze halfway into the plane.

"I want to see what's inside before Lysander get's back." Honeydew said innocently before fully seating himself in the cockpit, his head just sitting above the edge of the hole. "Hold this." he said to Xephos holding the glowstone pebble out of the cockpit for Xephos to hold up.

"What's it like inside there?" asked Xephos as he took the pebble and held it high so Honeydew could see. He checked behind him for Lysander, who was setting down the sack on the platform just then. _"Hurry up." _

"It doesn't look very difficult to understand," Honeydew replied nonchalantly. "There's a wheel like a smaller version of a ships wheel, and there's some levers too. Oh... and there's a red button here. Should I press it?"

"No, don't-" Xephos began just as Honeydew pressed down on the device. The front of the plane gave a heave as the machine kicked into life. Xephos stepped away as the propeller then began spinning, building speed, and the plane began to lurch forward on it's wheels toward the wall six yards ahead. "I'm on me way!" Honeydew laughed.

"What's going on? What are you doing!" Lysander ran up behind Xephos, then saw the plane moving with Honeydew inside. "Put off the engine you fool!" he cried out.

"The button isn't working!" the dwarf exclaimed as franticly tried to press the button again, then looked up just as the plane butted into the wall at a good speed. Xephos and Lysander saw him try to get out as the front of the plane suddenly exploded in a puff of redstone, and the plane fell apart undramatically. But even as the red smoke cleared there was no sign of Honeydew.

"Where did he go?" Lysander asked, looking about.

"Honeydew!" Xephos cried, looking around the dark room with the pebble held aloft. He continued to call out when suddenly from the wall that the plane had hit he heard a noise, and pressed up to listen as he called again. Then once again he heard a call of reply from the other side, in the deep voice of a dwarf. "He's on the other side of the wall!" Xephos cried, looking about. "But how did he get there? There's no openings."

"The redstone probably teleported him there. That stuff is strange when you mess with it. He'd do well to learn to not meddle with strange machinery." Lysander said darkly as he handed Xephos a crowbar from next to another sack of fuel.

"Stay where you are, Honeydew." Xephos yelled as he rammed the butt of the crowbar into the wall, prying away the boards. It took him only a minute to drive the rod through to the other room. "Honeydew?" Xephos called through the small hole, a ray of light from the glowstone shone into the room as Lysander walked over. "Are you there?"

"Yes, I'm here." Honeydew said, appearing on the other side of the spy-hole. "What in the name of Notch happened?" he looked slightly disheveled, with smears of redstone dust clinging to him along with slight singing on his beard.

"You crashed the bloody plane, you idiot." Xephos exclaimed through the gap. "The thing was full of redstone machinery. You know the kinds of weird stuff that happens when you mess with that stuff." Honeydew blew a stray strand of orange hair out of his face. Xephos sighed. "What's through there?"

"Not the plane." Honeydew looked around. "I've lost the plane. There could be a rouge flying machine soaring about somewhere."

"The plane fell apart when you hit the wall." Xephos explained, taking a step away from the wall. "Stand back, I'm going to get you out of their, friend." he began to hack at the boards again.

"I'll look around here then." Honeydew sighed, turning to study the room. Xephos took a good few minutes to create an opening large enough to squeeze through, jagged boards scraping at him as he pushed through, followed by a larger Lysander, who had more trouble, and so passed the glowstone to Xephos, who turned to find Honeydew on the other side of the quaint room. There was a decent bed at one end and a bookshelf at the other, a sea-chest at the foot of the shelf where Honeydew stood peering over the open chest.

"This is like a cabin, or something." Xephos gave Lysander a hand up after he'd squeezed through the hole. "What's in there, friend?" he called over to Honeydew.

There was a small pause before he resonded. "Nothing!" the dwarf suddenly said, as though snapping out of a daze, and made great effort to hide the fact he was rapidly filling his pockets from the contents of the chest.

"If you're taking gold you'd best be sharing it." Xephos stepped over to the chest and saw that Honeydew had completely ignored items of some value and was instead grabbing at tubes of brown paper. Xephos then saw from the half opened one in Honeydew's hand that the tubes contained small flat cakes, dark brown on top and light brown underneath. Honeydew looked at him with a surprised expression, one such of the cakes was clenched between his teeth. He shoved the tube he was holding into his now bulging pocket and bit through the cake, then held the half eaten one out to Xephos showing that between the layer of chocolate and shortbread was a layer of orange jam.

"Xephos, they're Jaffa Cakes." Honeydew said, beaming as he swallowed the rest of the cake. _"Real_ Jaffa Cakes!" he laughed, and Xephos joined in.

"How, though?" Xephos chuckled, taking the last two tubes from himself. "I thought that they were only made by the dwarves."

"Oh, Jasper has a certain penchant for those confections." Lysander spoke up as he worked on bashing the hole a little larger with the crowbar. "They're damned expensive, especially when he gets them shipped here." Lysander looked content with the hole, and dropped the crowbar before starting through. "I'm going to start getting the planes up onto the deck. Don't break the laws of physics anymore than you already have." he then disappeared out into the dark.

Xephos turned to Honeydew, who was standing to the side already most of the way through a whole tube of Jaffa Cakes. "Careful with how much you eat." Xephos warned. "You'll want to save some, and plus, we may need them if we go back out into the wilds again."

"It's been _so long."_ Honeydew sighed, then followed Xephos back out into the plane deck. Lysander had been working in the dark, and had already dragged one of the planes over to the platform when Xephos walked over to him with the glowstone. Lysander told them to take ahold of one of the planes and drag it onto the platform with the other. The planes were surprisingly light and did not require much effort to guide over to the elevator, yet Lysander still scolded them on their roughness with the precious aircraft.

"I still don't see how these work," Honeydew said, sounding worried as he pulled his plane onto the platform next to the others, making a vey tight fit. "Where are the wings that you mentioned?" he asked as Lysander pulled the heavy lever set into the floor.

"They're here." Lysander tapped the folded boards on the side of the cockpit as the platform began to climb back towards the light. "They fold up to conserve space when they're being stored."

"Oh!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Well, I don't see what I was so worried about! I mean the wings are_ designed to fold_, so what could possibly go wrong?"

Lysander ignored him as they rose up to the deck once more. It was well into the morning now, and Lysander instructed them to guide their planes to different spaces on the runway of the ship. He began showing them how to prepare the planes, how to pull out a pin and the wings would fold out, as well as applying fuel and readying the planes otherwise. However, Xephos and Honeydew proved so inept at this that he eventually did it himself while they stood off and considered what they were about to do.

"Do you have any idea how to do this?" Xephos asked as he stared at the paintwork Jasper had given his plane, a pattern of neon tartan covering it's huge body.

"I've no fucking clue." Honeydew said looking at his own plane which was bedecked in multi-coloured checks. He then looked over at Lysander's which was a light pink covered in red and white flowers.

"These fucking planes." Xephos sighed.

"They're beautiful." Honeydew said surely with a laugh. "They're the most beautiful planes in the world! Aren't they lovely?" Xephos gave an awkward shrug as Lysander called them over to his plane. The Skylord gave the two a lengthy instruction on how to fly the machines, making no shortage of mentioning that if they failed they would die a horrible death. Thankfully the basic instructions were simple enough, but that didn't help Xephos and Honeydew too much when failure meant imminent death, and as the sun rose well into the sky Lysander handed the two each a thick woolen scarf, in spite of the warm weather. "As we head towards the Skyhold it will become much colder. It is still winter further up the coast." he explained. "But we'd better be off if we want to avoid flying by night. Not even I have tried that yet."

It was with mounting trepidation that Xephos and Honeydew led their planes to the rear of the runway, where Lysander told them he would come last and fly ahead of them to lead the way. Xephos found himself being the first to go, and he sat for a long while in the cockpit; staring past the edge of the runway into water and the mouth of the lagoon beyond where the ancient watchtower stood half in ruins on the right sandbar.

Recalling what Lysander had told him, Xephos pressed the red button Honeydew had misused earlier and the propeller in front of him began to spin faster and faster. Xephos felt the machine wanting to move forwards, but the chocks under the wheels held it in place until the propeller was at full speed and the plane was pushed forwards like a racehorse at the gates. He could hear Honeydew beginning to power up his plane behind him, and looked behind him where Lysander was holding a set of ropes. He nodded at Xephos, and Xephos then shouted across to him over the increasing roar of the complex redstone engines; _"Chocks away!"_

Lysander tugged on the cords, and as the wedges beneath the planes wheels were whipped away the plane itself suddenly jerked into motion, quickly gaining speed as the wind whipped past Xephos while the gap between the plane and the edge of the ship closed within seconds. Taking hold of the lever next to the wheel, Xephos gently pulled it back, tilting the ailerons as the nose of the plane sped over the edge of the runway with the speed of four horses, and he began to feel the nose lifting as he pulled back on the lever. One second later he had cleared the runway and despite the plane dropping half a foot after loosing contact with the ship, the gaudy aircraft now sped off over the lagoon. Xephos was dimly aware of Honeydew screaming behind him as he too cleared the edge. Risking a glance back, he saw his friend ten or less meters behind him, pulling off right slightly as the dwarf piloting it shouted something to Xephos only for it to be lost over the roar of the wind and the engines. Behind the dwarf, Lysander was now taking off, and managed to become airbourne before reaching the end of the runway, he began to fly over the other two planes to get ahead. Xephos at the time was so caught up in the euphoria of flight that as he returned to facing forwards he saw that in his negligence the plane had angled back down towards the water of the lagoon. Caught in panic, Xephos grabbed the flight lever and tugged it back, jerking the plane from it's trajectory, and as Xephos struggled to hold back the lever the plane slowly pulled up from the water, coming out of it's dive with only a few yards between it and the water. Easing off the flight lever Xephos saw that while he may have avoided the ocean, the ancient ruined watchtower lay ahead of him. He cried out as he swerved the plane to the left to avoid the hard stone walls, thick with moss. The aeroplane tilted left as Xephos sped past the walls, the wheels clipping some trees at the base of the tower while he aimed out towards the open ocean.

Sighing loudly over the racket of the machine, Xephos righted himself and looked about for the other two aeroplanes. Peering off to his right he saw in the far distance the two small craft flying away down the coast, already several hundred yards ahead. Xephos tilted his plane right and lined himself up with the coast, adjusted his altitude and headed after his two companions. Pressing up another lever on his left slightly he injected more fuel into the engine, the speed of his propeller increased, and then the plane itself. Xephos pressed the lever further forwards and as he sped after his comrades with an extremely loud zooming noise, he noticed one of the planes had turned about and was heading back his way.

_That'll be Lysander_. Xephos reasoned as he closed the distance between himself and Honeydew, while Lysander's flower patterned aircraft flew further towards Xephos, the great zooming building as suddenly Lysander spun into a corkscrew when he passed Xephos fifty yards to his left. Xephos gave a laugh as he glanced back to see Lysander right himself and carve about to speed up to Xephos' right wing over the wooded shore, the hills and mountains near Mistral City far distant and green like a great carpet.

Lysander motioned for Xephos to fly ahead to near Honeydew, now barely four-hundred yards away. Xephos sped up and in minutes he flew up to the left wing of his friend and reduced his speed to allow Honeydew to keep up. He looked over at the opposite aeroplane and waved at Honeydew, who was not wearing his iron helmet for the occasion, and waved back at Xephos, then threw back his head and laughed, a sound forever lost over the roar of the planes.

Lysander sped ahead of them in the clear sky, leading them along the green coast. Xephos looked ahead through the glass screen of his plane and between the two wings near the nose of the craft to the horizon. Far ahead along the coast Xephos could see the beginnings of a heavy grey mountain range down the flat coast and beyond that the skies seemed somewhat darker. He looked back across at Honeydew, who was half standing in his cockpit, sticking his head above the glass with the wind blowing through his hair. He gave Xephos a thumbs up, and in spite of their quest, the two had not a care in the world.

After many hours of flight, the three craft and their pilots were now within a thick bank of dark cloud, gusts of ice laden wind blowing into their faces, now wrapped firmly in scarfs as they gripped the wheels of their aeroplanes with frozen white knuckles. Xephos looked ahead of the nose of his plane, the propeller sucking ice towards him to be smashed onto the glass screen before him. He reached over the front of the glass and wiped away the encrusted ice crystals with a numb hand. Through the screen he peered ahead and saw just ahead in the thick cloud Lysander's plane leading them through the blizzard, flickering as ice flew past on the wind. Xephos' plane gave a wild buck as a cross-wind buffeted them. He gritted his teeth and brought the plane back on track, sighing into his thick scarf, wrapped tightly about his face, damp with perspiration. Xephos looked to his right along his aircraft's gaudy wings, icicles building on the edges, running parallel to the ground somewhere far below. Past the wing Xephos could see Honeydew moving in and out of cloud, plane juttering in the wind, a scream every so often could just be heard from him before it was tugged away by the wind.

Looking back to Lysander, Xephos rubbed a hand through his hair over his freezing scalp, and hunkered as low as he could into the small cockpit, wishing for warmer clothes. The first few hours of flight had been dreamlike, the sun high in the sky and a cooling breeze coming from the north with a nothing but sky all around. Honeydew and Xephos had been like children, soaring out over the forest on the right and sea to the left, exploring, but always keeping Lysander in sight. Honeydew had even, through sheer thrill, began practicing steep dives and even tried a corkscrew once, before Lysander had flown over to them and ushered them back over the shore. It was at that time the first small bergs of ice were spotted, floating down from the east ahead. They continued onward and the icebergs grew in size, and the sky stopped being so clear, with the darkened horizon Xephos had spotted earlier now becoming a thick wall of clouds looming ever closer.

Their merriment stopped as the wind began, which was suddenly and coldly. The euphoria of flight disappeared and a deep seated fear set in to replace it. Lysander dropped back until his plane was between Xephos and Honeydew's, a few mere feet between the wing tips.

"_Stay close to me! If you get lost, drop below the cloud and follow the coast back!" _Lysander bellowed to each of them in turn across the wind before pulling back ahead, slowly rising his elevation until they were level with the cloud, and soon after they were within it, ice flying at them, causing the engines to at times gutter and cough as the winds threw them about. Xephos found himself utterly terrified.

Checking ahead for Lysander, Xephos risked a glance over the rim of the plane as they entered a clear patch of clouds. As soon as Xephos' head was clear of the screen the wind snapped at his scarf, nearly tearing it loose while he looked below, to where the ocean floor was now entirely frozen, and the trees on the shore were void of any leaf save a gnarled pine, yet all wore long spears of ice. Momentarily, Lysander would dive below the clouds to reemerge moments after and continued. He made one such dive now, looking for something along the shore, and then soared back up into the cloud, but instead of continuing, Lysander's hand shot out to the left of his plane, palm open, motioning for a turn to the left. The other two planes followed him as he turned, heading away from the shore and out over the ice.

Xephos rationalised that there must have been some kind of landform on the shore to give reference where the Skyhold was out over the ocean. Xephos theorised that they could only be few more hours away from the fortress, and winced as the wind, once coming at their nose now blew at them from the side. He attempted adjusted his scarf to find the moisture from his breath had frozen the fabric solid. Cursing, Xephos tugged it off and broke the ice crusting the scarf and re tied it about his head, guarding the right side from the wind, all while steering the violently rocking plane with the other hand. With another sigh that formed into a cloud before him, Xephos reached back over the glass screen and cracked off the new ice before hunkering down for the rest of the flight.

Hours passed sluggishly as the small troop of planes made their way further away from shore, the wind grew harder and colder as the sky around them darkened. It was all Xephos could do to sit in the cockpit and concentrate on keeping up with Lysander, he had his knees tucked up to his chest and elbows tucked into his sides as he constantly worked his fingers while gripping the wheel. He found himself blinking very often, in an attempt to stop his eyes from freezing, and the scarf about his head was now frozen solid, but he hadn't the energy to fix it. The aeroplane was in bad condition, too. The canvas that covered the wings and body had bee ripped in places by the ice, and the force of the wind was tearing them even bigger. The engine was also not faring well, several time in the past hours it had seemed to stop, and only Xephos' frantic pressing of the red button had started it again. He was beginning to wonder wether he'd die first or the plane would. Vision swimming, Xephos dismissed a shadow ahead of them for a mirage, only to blink and stare wildly as he realised that it was anything but.

Before them out of the darkness loomed a huge structure of sandstone; two ring-walls surrounding a circular building, each wall had towers at every twelfth segment, like hands on a clock, the first wall was corrected to the second with a crosshatch of sandstone beams at the floor, and the building had atop it a long strip of stone wide enough for a jousting tilt that would have to have been a runway. Xephos goggled for a moment when he realised that instead of the structure being atop a tower as he suspected, it was floating in mid-air.

Being too close to come into the run-way, Xephos immediately pulled off to the right to circle around the building as to not loose sight of it and come in for another pass and try the runway. Yet as he left the formation and began to circle he noticed that this was not the only part of the Skyhold, for as he came to the other side of the rings he found another structure with a twelve towered wall, but this one was much bigger. Xephos estimated the larger ring was a quarter-mile wide, and as he changed course and flew over the larger ring of the Skyhold he saw within was a garden-like grove, with several small houses about the walls, and a large hill in the middle, a stream trickling down from it's slopes, from the peak of with stood a huge thick-set tower of sandstone and granite, with four other spires at separate quarters of the circle, a glass ring sitting atop them, surrounding the central tower. Xephos boggled at this citadel suspended in the air, and as he wheeled about to return to the airstrip he saw that there were three other smaller rings at the differing quarters around the Skyhold's main body. He completed another circuit to see that they were the same structure as the one with the runway, but made of different materials and all seemed to have trees atop them. One was made of mossy stone, and it had at it's crest a group of thick, overgrown trees. Another was made entirely of solid ice, and had atop it a stand of thick pines, and the last was made of a strange maroon stone, which Xephos strongly suspected was netherrack, but perhaps even stranger was the tree at it's head; a bare skeleton of ancient looking blackened wood, the limbs somehow alight during the snowstorm, and even more odd than that was the fact the fire seemed to have been there a long time, and the tree still stood.

Content with examining the scene, and now determined to get on land away from the cold bite of the wind, Xephos curved back around in his plane to come at the runway from the inside of the Skyhold. As he turned, Xephos looked down and noticed that tucked between the two walls of the main ring there was an airship, and as he squinted through the wind, he recognised the ebony face painted onto the half deflated envelope as Madame Nubescu's likeness, branding the airship as the one of the Carnival del Banjo.

_What in the name of Jeb and Notch is the Carnival doing _here_?_ Xephos thought as he flew further away from the Skyhold, wheeling about to come at the runway dead straight. He adjusted his altitude as to just skip over the central tower and hit the runway at a slowed pace. Just as he started on course, he noticed Lysander's plane flying very slowly and very low over the central tower, when as he reached it, the plane suddenly corkscrewed and a small figure of Lysander hung from the cockpit and dropped onto the tower's flat roof while his plane sailed off over the edge of the wall, canvas in tatters.

Xephos stared off after Lysander's abandoned plane as it vanished, abruptly returning his concentration to land his plane as he flew over the tower with only mere feet to spare, Lysander waving as he flew past. Xephos slowly pressed down on the left and right levers, slowing the plane and putting it into a gentle dive as he cleared the inner and outer walls of the central ring. As the plane closed the distance to the end of the runway Xephos gently pulled the plane out of it's dive, bringing it level, and pulled back on the speed lever as with a judder the wheels made jarring contact with the runway. Xephos then reached for a third lever at the right of the seat, pulling the brakes hard, but the plane did not slow. Instead it continued to hurtle towards the edge, brakes and wheels frozen stiff by the icy wind. The craft skidded along the iced over runway as Xephos continued to tug on the brake lever, to no avail. Looking up, he saw there was hardly twenty yards of platform left, and the plane was closing the distance fast. Unbuckling himself from the seat feverishly, Xephos threw his pack over the side and onto the ground, then stood into the cold wind and turned, stepping onto the plane's tail and leapt down the rear of the plane, spreading his legs to avoid the tail fin, which only narrowly missed his groin.

The aeroplane skidded off the edge of the runway as soon as Xephos leapt off, and fell nose over tail towards the frozen ocean below as he arced towards the edge of the platform, chest and arms smashing into the edge, forcing air from his lungs as he dangled high above a hard stone floor at the foot of the tower. Fingers numb from the cold, he had only barely the strength to keep himself hanging, arms reaching forward for a handhold, but the icy pavement brokered no aid for him. So Xephos hung on the edge, eyes shut against the cold and he was buffeted by the wind, which masked the sound of footsteps coming his way. Xephos looked over the edge to seem a figure hurrying towards him, and moments later that form was revealed to be Lysander, who stopped and looked about, searching for anyone.

"_Lysander!" _Xephos called out, and the Skylord turned to him, then stepped into a run at the sight of the figure hanging from the edge of the runway. Lysander grabbed Xephos under his armpits and hoisted him up over the edge onto the platform. He had his blue cap and goggle firmly pulled down, and his scarf was wrapped tightly about his face, leaving only his large forearms the only flesh exposed to the wind.

"_Are you alright?"_ Lysander asked, voice muffled by the scarf and the wind. _"Where's your plane?"_

"_The brakes wouldn't work! It went over the edge!" _Xephos shouted over the wind, taking his scarf off and swinging it against the ground twice, cracking the ice encasing it. _"I think the damned thing was frozen. What were you thinking, making us fly through this? It nearly killed us!"_ Xephos shouted, then remembered that he hadn't seen Honeydew since sighting the Skyhold. He went to ask Lysander, when another shape appeared out of the cloud at the other end of the runway.

"_You made it!"_ Honeydew yelled as they made their was towards him, Xephos stopping to retake his pack that he'd thrown out of the cockpit. Honeydew was standing at the top of a stairwell leading into the sandstone tower, shivering. He was cracking his scarf in his hands and rubbing his bare pink chest while gritting his teeth. _"So we all lost our planes, then?" _he asked as they entered the stairway, Lysander removing his goggles and pulling down his scarf.

"I lost mine over the edge and was left hanging until Lysander found me." Xephos blew into his hands. "And Lysander did this crazy thing where he flew upside down and dropped out of his plane. It was amazing! How did you loose yours?" he asked Honeydew.

"He crashed. You both did." Lysander said with a hint of mirth. "You both crashed _badly."_

"Well," Honeydew tilted his head as they descended the stairs which followed the curve of the wall. "Mine wasn't that bad. I tried to copy Lysander and I may have ended up taking out the top of a wall as I dropped out of the plane." he grinned sheepishly. "I perfect landing I reckon."

"Come with me." Lysander instructed as they came to the foot of the tower and followed a doorway out of the tower to the foot of the wall, where the wind whistled by overhead, but below the walls stilled it all. He led them to a gateway between the walls under a portcullis to a room that joined the previous ring to the main body of the Skyhold. The room's floor was made of thick glass that made Honeydew and Xephos stop briefly as they stared down to the sea ice three hundred yards below, shards of ice blowing past on the leering wind. Lysander hurried them along, and they exited to a walkway between the two walls that ringed the main platform of the Skyhold. The path was totally bare and railless, and hardly more than a thicker version of the struts that crisscrossed across the gap between the walls, which it connected to, leaving an open gap either side to the long fall to the ice. They cautiously followed Lysander along this path, glancing up at the wind that blew over the walls from right to left, yet as Lysander led them through the gateway to the main ring, a man stepped forward to bar the way.

"_Stop, Lysander!"_ the man yelled. "You know the rules! Why do you bring these outsiders to Skyhold? Out of good will, I shall give you a chance to explain." the man scowled. He was extremely pale, with skin nearly as white as the ice that clung to the walls outside, and eyes that seemed so brown they were nearly red. About his head were a pair of Skylord goggles holding back his black hair, with two thick streaks of grey sweeping back across his head. He looked old, yet there was an ageless quality to him, for while his hair and eyes marked his age, his skin, as white as it was, seemed as smooth as a young man's.

"Step aside, Vitali! There is no time to waste. A terrible evil is loose in this world." Lysander said firmly, but the man made no sign of moving. "We must speak to Skylord Amber. Immediately."

Vitali glanced at Xephos and Honeydew before returning his glare to Lysander. "I am afraid that is not possible. She is dead, and the others have vanished." he said it without emotion, as though the news were mere facts, crossing his arms over his grey coat.

"_What!"_ Lysander blurted after a moment of speechlessness, a rare display of emotion from him.

"Oh my goodness." Xephos hissed through his teeth.

"I think the fled." Vitali continued. "Only I and Skylord Baako remain."

Lysander recovered from his shock and stepped towards Vitali. "When did this happen?" he demanded. _"When!?"_

Vitali stood his ground and looked back at Lysander equally.

"This is terrible news." Xephos muttered to Honeydew.

"...Everybody's dead?" the Dwarf replied.

"It only happened recently, when that creepy carnival came to Skyhold." Vitali answered, the response made Honeydew jump.

"He doesn't mean-" he whispered to Xephos.

"Yeah, the Carnival del Banjo is here, I saw their airship as I flew over." Xephos groaned. "That carnival _is_ really creepy, actually. But I'm not sure if they're _evil_, even if they did try to screw us over last time."

"If what you say is true, then we have no time to lose." Lysander glared at Vitali, eyes commanding him to move.

"Why are you here, Lysander?" Vitali answered in a low voice.

"Quiet!" Lysander burst. "Take us to Baako immediately. It is of utmost importance!"

No one spoke for a few moments afterwards as the two skylords continued to stare each other down, the only sound the whistling of the icy wind over the ring walls. When finally Vitali spoke it was with a measure of wrath.

"Very well." he seethed and turned without another word, leading the way through the wall. Lysander beckoned Xephos and Honeydew after him and soon they were led into the central ring, where all around they found a lush meadow surrounding a hill where the central tower stood, small streams winding about the gardens and small buildings that littered the area, trees and flowers lining their banks, untouched by the wind, yet covered in a dusting of snow. _This whole scene is torn from the pages of a storybook. _Xephos thought as Vital led them along a path running left of the central hill to one of the small but well built house that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the Skyhold that were scattered around the citadel, but as they neared it the door opened and out stepped a tall black skinned woman, the smell of smoke clinging to her like webs. She gave a start at the appearance of four strangers, but it took only a whiff of the aura that surrounded her for Xephos and Honeydew to recognise Madame Nubescu without a doubt.

"Nubescu?!" Honeydew blurted. "Wait...oh gods. It's _Nubescu."_

"_I thought I told you to stay away from him, you witch!" _Vitali cried out at the sight of her, fury shooting from his dark eyes. "She's trying to kill him, Lysander!" he turned to his fellow skylord and pointed into the small window of the house, through which by the light of a wood fire a frail figure was lying on a bed, arched in pain.

"He's obviously poorly..." Xephos sighed as Lysander pushed to look through the glass, where he paled at the sight within.

"Nubescu is not!" the madame replied, her voice as throaty and deep as though she'd drank sawdust. "Ja only be gettin' in da way!"

"Lysander, I think she may be telling the truth." Xephos said, pulling Lysander away from the window. "Although the others in her carnival tried to swindle Honeydew and I, she was good to us." Lysander's jaw tightened, and Xephos thought he heard Honeydew say: "Dwarfin' it up" under his breath.

"Don't believe her, Lysander. She is a practitioner of dark arts and a villain!" Vitali grabbed Nubescu by the arm and roughly dragged her away from the door and held her writhing before him.

"Vitali!" Lysander growled. The pale skylord scowled and released Nubescu, who scrambled away from him to the doorway. "Get some rest. _I'll handle this."_ Lysander said darkly. Vitali gave a final scowl and turned with almost a hiss and stormed off past the other houses, disappearing into the darkness in an instant.

"I think I know how to get on Nubescu's good side." Honeydew whispered to Xephos as Lysander watched Vitali slink off. The dwarf sidled up to Nubescu and pressed a small bag into her hands, patting it as he did so. "Nubescu, here's six gold, just don't say anything else, thanks." he whispered before stepping back to Xephos, who was chuckling as Nubescu emptied the bag and counted the finger-length gold bars. "I speak the language of the carnival." Honeydew said to Xephos with a laugh.

"Madame, we would speak with Baako." Lysander said to Nubescu politely yet firmly. Nubescu looked up from the gold and stepped away from the door and pocketed the bag of bars. "...Free gold, mon..." she mumbled as the three entered.

Lysander ran to Baako's bedside, Honeydew and Xephos shuffling awkwardly to the other side of the bed in the plain but serviceable house, the only thing out of pace was an old man lying on a bed and a large portrait of a woman in skylord regalia, her dark braid hanging over her shoulder. The man lying one the bed wore a long white robe and a set of goggles around his forehead that marked him as a skylord, his skin was browned from years in the sun, and his beard grey and scruffy. Pain marked his ancient lined face as he rocked his head, eyes tightly shut. Baako had the figure of a man who had once been broad of shoulder and thick of arm, but now his frame was bony and emaciated.

"Grandfather!" Lysander said, strong voice hardly audible as he knelt at his grandfather's head. "Vitali said nothing of this, what happened to him?" he turned to Nubescu as he clasped Baako's hand. Honeydew and Xephos were taken aback, but the similarities were there. Lysander shared Baako's face shape and build, in spite of one looking starved.

"I fear it is too late." Nubescu croaked as she entered, walking over to Lysander silently. "He is close to da end."

"Is there nothing we can do? Can he talk?" Lysander pleaded. "I _must_ speak with him one last time." for the first time since meeting the tall, imposing skylord, Xephos and Honeydew saw him begging. "Is there _anything_ that you can do?"

Nubescu shrugged. "He is old. Old, and sick." she said sounding resigned.

"I know what we need." Honeydew said after a moment of silence. "We need a bucket, some dirt, some feathers and two golden apples. If that worked on Peculier then it may help him."

"Well, I don't know about that other stuff, and I think only Fumblemore could make that potion." Xephos said carefully. "...But, I _do_ have a golden apple."

"_What?" _Honeydew gasped. "When did you get one of those? Have you been hiding it all along?"

"I got it off Jock's body, he had it on him when I killed him."

"Yes!" Madame Nubescu exclaimed. "Dat could help him some!" she reached over the bed to Xephos, gesturing frantically. "Pass it to me, mon!"

Xephos hurriedly took off his pack and searched through it, finding the fist sized golden orb and withdrawing it before passing it to Nubescu. She took the apple and tilted Baako's head back wrenched his jaw open and made him take a bite of the apple, working his mouth with her hands before tilting his head back, forcing him to swallow. Nubescu tossed the apple aside as the others looked on awkwardly. "He should be better now." Nubescu said as she stepped back. Baako then gave a judder and with a loud rattling gasp his eyes groggily opened, staring at Lysander.

"Lysander," Baako groaned, his voice husky and ancient as the rest of him. "Is that you?"

"Yes!" Lysander blinked furiously. "It is me. What happened here, Grandfather?"

"I know not, only that I have fallen to _His_ foul curse. But time is short, even more so for me." Baako gave a rattling laugh, squeezing his grandson's hand. "You have come for the map fragment that you wrote to me about?"

"...Yes..." Lysander's voice was a barely audible croak.

"Ah, then these "legendary heroes" must have come with you, then?" Baako made a pained expression as he turned his head to Xephos and Honeydew, smiling at them.

"They are." Lysander answered.

Baako squinted his filmy eyes at the two. "Come closer." he bid them. "Yes, you should do. You will _have_ to." he turned back to his grandson. "Now, listen, Lysander. These two must complete the tests-_cough-_of the Skylords."

"...The tests, grandfather?"

"Yes, after they have completed the tests, they must enter the control room." Baako coughed.

"_The control room?"_ Xephos muttered under his breath.

"Heroes..." Baako turned to them again. "To do what I ask you must use your heads. But _not_ for the goggles." he chuckled briefly.

"But can't we just have the map fragment?" Lysander asked, pressing his forehead to Baako's hand. _"I don't understand, grandfather!" _he sobbed and for a moment the skylord seemed no man than a small boy.

"You will, in time." Baako's smile was only brief, and was replaced by an expression of shock when he arced his back with a cry of pain. "The dark lord knows that I've told you..." he gasped as Lysander leapt to his feet and Nubescu rushed to his side. "He will put an end to me now. I _feel_ his presence here." gritting his teeth Baako closed his eyes and leaned back his aged head when he peered back at Lysander standing over him with tears in his eyes. "...farewell, young one." With a last spasm Baako fell flat and unmoving. There was a stunned silence for a few seconds, then with a dark hiss Baako's browned skin suddely fell away from his face along with the rest of his flesh, red and raw, leaving only a grinning, bloodstained skull on a bed of it's own meat. As the entire room recoiled save Lysander, the hissing ceased and with a sifting noise, the sockets where Baako's eyes once lay slowly filled with sand from nowhere, marking Israphel's regards on his latest victim.

_Author's Notes:_

Well, here we are again. I'm got going to lie, for a long time I was just sick of writing, it got tiresome and the regularity of the task increased the mundaneness of it. Then a couple of weeks ago I felt the need to begin again but unfortunately that was the time we had mock exams at school, so I was only able to write between study. But they ended recently so cool bananas. This hopefully means more writing, which is definitely what I want to do.

So I hope you like this chapter, those of you that are still out there.

Twitter: /OJvanderBeek

Forum Page: . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread -(o-j-van-der-beek)


	28. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter28

Chapter 28: Fire and Ice

Honeydew once more threw up noisily into the stream that ran by the foot of the hill at the center of the Skyhold. He spluttered as he wiped his mouth with the back of a gloved hand.

"Urgh, Xephos..." he groaned. Xephos turned from facing the house where Lysander knelt next to his grandfather's remains to Honeydew, crouched at the grassy bank of the previously clear water, retching up his stomach.

"Are you alright?" Xephos said flatly. He'd been hard-pressed to keep himself from emptying his belly as Baako died, but Honeydew had only just managed to bowl his way out of the door before vomiting noisily into the stream. Lysander hadn't moved from Baako's bedside, where his stripped skeleton still lay, surrounded by his flesh and eyes filled with sand. Xephos sighed and glanced back at the windows. The candles had burned low and were now winking out, leaving the room dark, and Xephos unable to see Lysander any longer. "Do you think that we should go check on Lysander?" he looked back at Honeydew, who was climbing to his feet. "He's been in there for a long time."

"I don't want to go back in there." Honeydew slurred. They'd been outside now for nearly an hour and a half judging by the rate at which the tallow candles had eaten away at their wicks, and Honeydew had gone through intervals of settled to heaving out his innards into the stream the entire time span.

They were tired. They were always tired. Tired, and yet unable to bring themselves to sleep, knowing what had occurred in the room behind them, and for want of not abandoning Lysander once he exited. Thankfully the cold bite of the air that drifted down from the whistling skies above was enough to keep them awake, but not unable to halt the wariness that seeped into their bodies. As Honeydew lay down on the soft, dark grass to rest his aching joints, Xephos sat across from him, rubbing his hands. He found his thoughts turning momentarily to Madame Nubescu. He knew that she was not in the room with Lysander, as he'd not seen her whilst he'd looked through the windows to check him, so he deduced that she'd slunk off while Xephos had followed Honeydew outside. He wondered if she'd gone back to the Carnival Ship or was hiding somewhere on the huge flying fortress. For not the first time the possibility that she, or even the Carnival itself was in league with Israphel came to Xephos' mind.

All thoughts were suddenly disturbed as there came a sound behind him. Honeydew sat up and Xephos turned as Lysander stepped out of the doorway, tying his scarf neatly about his neck. He looked as though he'd just stepped off of his airship; his clothes were not in any way disheveled, his hat was straight and his face was clear, if not somewhat grimmer than usual, which is to say he looked as though he was on a warpath. "Heroes." he said before either of them were able to speak. "You heard my grandfather's last words. You must complete the Trials and become Skylords." he spoke the words as if the news were plain and were of no abnormality in their acquisition.

"Do we get goggles?" Xephos said dryly as he stood. "Also, what do these trials entail?"

"There are a set of rare items held on the three elemental areas on the edge of Skyhold." Lysander explained, glancing at Honeydew as the dwarf tried to sit up, suddenly lunging for the stream again and vomited some more into the water as he got to his feet.

"Do we get goggles?" Xephos asked dryly as he helped Honeydew back to his feet. "Also, what do these trials entail?"

"They are full of danger," Lysander replied in the same flat voice. "I should rest before I attempt them."

"Where can we do that?" Honeydew said. "And what are we gonna do about . . . Baako." he added, avoiding Lysander's eyes.

"There are many houses around here that you could use to rest." Lysander replied, gesturing absently at the path behind him, ringing the outside of the hill, small houses scattered outside it. "I will have to remove my grandfather's remains as soon as I can." he stated this without a flicker of emotion, the unnaturalness of it was like watching a flame that did not stir, even if blown.

"We can handle these trial, I'm sure." Xephos said, turning to Honeydew. "You've got a nice empty stomach, Honeydew." he added.

". . . Yeah?" the dwarf replied groggily, still looking ill.

"Fancy a Jaffa Cake?"

"No! Not now!" in spite of his condition, Honeydew looked shocked at his own words. "I'll 'ave one later. I can't even look at one now."

"Find me after you have all three of the items." Lysander interjected, handing Xephos a small grey satchel, made from soft strong cloth. "You will need this to carry the items." He said simply, and then slowly walked past them, following the path counter-clockwise around the hill.

"Where are you going?" Xephos called after him.

Lysander didn't stop walking, nor did he look back. "To find out who committed these terrible crimes and avenge my grandfather." his voice was grave, his stride slow and purposeful. They watched him reach the foot of a huge stairway that led up the hill to the thick tower. As he started up the trees, thick on the hill's sides soon hid him from sight.

Xephos and Honeydew then started along the path clockwise, where a group of small houses were spattered along the wall of the Skyhold. They made their way to a larger house built in the same style as the one where Baako had been killed. The door was unlocked, and the interior dark, as though uninhabited for weeks. Honeydew lit a tallow candle and they pressed into the house, quickly finding a bedroom and living room with a couch. Rushing ahead, Honeydew quickly claimed the bed as his own, leaving Xephos to the couch, which he piled up with as many pillows as he saw fit. Xephos wondered if Honeydew had even bothered to take of his equipment, as while he was doing so himself he heard his friend say: _"Sleepy, sleepy dwarf!"_ loudly followed by a loud thump as he fell into the feather bed in the next room. This was followed by a sound of extreme pleasure, then shortly after, snoring.

Xephos found himself marveling at how quickly Honeydew had fallen asleep as he lay down, but only moments after lying down he was too drifting into blackness.

"It's been a long time since I've had a good sleep." Xephos yawned as he and Honeydew headed out of the doorway of the house they'd stayed in. The two of them had slept in well past midday, and Honeydew would likely have gone on much longer had Xephos not tired of waiting and woken him. "That was very refreshing." he gave a start as he stepped outside, large flakes of snow falling everywhere about him.

"God's it's been ages since we've seen nice snow instead of the horrible icy rain." Honeydew breathed in deeply through his nose. "Reminds me of winter at the Yogcave." he finished with a air of sadness.

"We should probably get going for these elemental areas." Xephos stated after a brief silence. Without another word they started around the edge of the Skyhold, until they found at one of the quarters of the main platform a gateway in the wall, leading out to one of the platforms.

"I think this one is the fiery one." Honeydew stated as they exited through a gateway identical to the one they'd come to the Skyhold on, and out over a railless bridge to the outer ring-wall of the center platform, the lattice-work of stone beams weaving either side of the bridge. The wind had died overnight, and while it still gusted, it carried no ice, and occasionally a ray of sunlight would shine out of the clouds that hung overhead, shedding snow down onto the Skyhold. They crossed the bridge and through the gate in the outer wall, coming to a small room that contained a large chest and another exit, above which a sign reading _The Trial of Fire _hung. "See, what did I tell you?" Honeydew said as he looked past the exit. Another bridge led out to the second platform, a sort of squashed sphere of soft red rock. Atop the huge red structure there stood the ever-burning trees that they'd seen from the air, the platform was also ringed with the same stone lattice-work and wall as the rest of the Skyhold. There was an opening in the red structure ahead, gaping like a wound and dark, foreboding as the lair of a sleeping dragon.

"This here says: _Just in case._" Xephos read as he opened the chest next to Honeydew. Within sat two small buckets the size of a very large tankard, their tops plugged with a lid, and their sides adorned with swirls.

"Is this water?" Honeydew said, picking up the buckets. Each fit easily into each of his large hands. "Oh gods, water. _Oh no_. It's the trial of fire and we need water..." Xephos took one of the buckets from Honeydew, turning it and studying the markings about the brim. He smiled suddenly.

"Don't you recognise this?" He asked Honeydew, who answered only with a confused look as the wind moaned outside. "It's the same kind of bucket that Lysander used to get us into Jasper's house ages ago. The ones that create a thick noodle of water of whatever. I think it's called a Charmed Bucket or something?"

"Oh gods, I think you're right." Honeydew looked at his bucket, It was nearly exactly the same as the one that Lysander had used on the Sky Platforms in Mistral City over a weeks ago. "This could definitely be useful."

Xephos turned and looked towards the entrance to the Trial. "Get some torches ready, it looks pretty dark in there. And get ready to have something just attack you, Lysander did warn us it was dangerous." he punctuated his point by drawing his new sword, it's blade curved and moody in the dark light. He stowed his bucket in his pack. "Are you ready for this?" he asked.

"Mate, I was born ready." Honeydew answered as he lit a torch. He led the way toward the mouth of the cave, cocked crossbow in one hand and torch in the other. "It's bloody dark." Honeydew stated as they entered, even though some sunlight still poured in behind them. The walls of the tunnel they stood in were deep pinkish-red and grotesquely soft looking, as though made from meat, and the floor was covered in a fine dark grey silt that sucked them in ankle deep and made walking a slow affair. They continued walking for down the passage until it sharply turned left, they followed it, and with the light from the entrance gone the darkness flowed about them, the torch the only source of light now. By it's flame the misshapen walls seemed to squirm and writhe, as pulsating to the beat of some creature's heart. Xephos walked behind Honeydew, the tunnel was wide enough for two abreast, but he did not wish to get any closer to the walls than he needed to. Xephos slowed his pace, for through their footsteps he'd been sure that he'd heard a noise. He called Honeydew to a stop. "I heard something..." They both listened, and after a moment there came the sound of a dull grunt of squeal through the wall on their right.

"Oh gods. What's that?" Honeydew moaned. They listened again when there came another sound, one of steps moving through the silt down the passage towards them. _"There's something here."_ Honeydew turned and held his torch high while he raised his crossbow and Xephos stepped forwards, sword ready as on the edge of the torchlight a large dark silhouette stepped forwards. The light glinted off of the beast's sword, shining golden in it's huge hand, the rest of it's body was of a man's, covered in thick dark hair, save patches where hair and flesh had fallen away, leaving raw bloody tissue or bone bare. The creature's head was identical to that of a boar; it's long snout, tusks and small eyes. One of these bare patches stretched from it's nose over half of it's bestial face, leaving a part of a skull grinning back, and an eye staring from a bony socket. But it was not murder that shone in the chimera's eyes, more curiosity or surprise.

"Oh my gods!" Honeydew shouted. He gave a start as he fired his crossbow at the undead pigman, the bolt flying into it's shoulder. The beast squealed in pain, falling back into the shadows.

"Why did you do that!" Xephos yelled, pulling Honeydew back. "That was a zombie pigman! They don't attack you unless you hurt them you idiot-" there then came a high pitched squeal and from the dark there came several others to answer it. The pigman Honeydew had maimed leapt back into the torchlight, eyes flaring and mouth hanging open as it swung it's crude sword at Honeydew. Xephos grabbed his friend by his bandoleers and hauled him out of the way of the strike. The pigman tried to run forwards, but Honeydew kicked it backwards as Xephos dragged him back down the tunnel, the sound of at least half a dozen pigmen following them. "Get back! Come on!" he yelled as they rounded the corner and the sunlight shone down the tunnel. They had gotten fifteen yards back down the tunnel and Honeydew had loaded three bolts into his crossbow when the roar of zombie pigmen sounded and they burst around the corner, throaty squeals issuing from their raw mouths.

"You've angered the pigmen!" Xephos yelled. Honeydew fired his crossbow into the throng, dropping it immediately to draw his sword. The quarrels all struck a target, two into the breast and neck of the first assailant, the pigman that Honeydew had already shot, felling it, and the other sticking deep into another's bicep. Xephos leapt forwards as a pigman tried to rush them, he stepped past it's striking radius and swept his sabre across it's belly and brought the blade up to catch another's sword, where Honeydew stepped forwards and stabbed it between the ribs. They quickly stepped backwards as the next three pigmen attempted to catch them unready. Honeydew leapt back towards one of the beast men, catching it's wrist as it tried to slice at him, stabbing through it through the stomach and pushing the body into it's partner as he wrenched his sword free. One of the two last pigmen tried to stab at Honeydew while he was occupied, but Xephos stepped in, swinging his sabre as best he could in the confined space, bringing it down on the pigman's forearm before it could reach Honeydew, hewing it off. As it squealed in pain Honeydew swung his short-sword at the pigman's open kneecap, sending it sprawling on the silty floor, now muddy with blood. The last pigman in the throng was now pushing off it's brother's body that Honeydew had pushed at it, and rushed at them in the corridor. It's swing was wide enough to kill both of them, but Honeydew stepped forwards with his sword braced, catching the sword hard. The pigman's other hand swung in and forcefully punched Honeydew in the gut. The tall dwarf crumpled, wheezing, but Xephos' sword sung through the air and into the shoulder of the last pigman as it started to recover to finish off Honeydew.

"_Oof! _Fuck!" the dwarf grunted as the large body fell onto him. With help from Xephos he was able to push it off of him and get to his feet. He leant with a hand against the wall, which felt uncomfortably squishy through his glove, sucking in air after being winded.

"It's okay, we're good." Xephos said, taking a step forwards between Honeydew and the darkness. "I think there's no more for now. But I think there's a lot in there, and they'll be coming for you."

"What!?" Honeydew yelped, standing straighter.

"You were the one who hurt the first one, so they'll try to kill you first." Xephos stated, glancing back at Honeydew. "We should push on, they must be coming from a spawner, so the longer we wait the more there'll be."

"How do you know this stuff about zombie pigmen?" asked Honeydew as he picked up his dropped torch and crossbow, hanging it from his belt. "Did you read it somewhere?"

Xephos gave a start. He didn't know how he knew that either, it had just come to him at random. He'd noticed that happen before occasionally, gaining random knowledge of something. It was like he was remembered something, but forgetting where from.

"I must've." he replied, trying to sound absent.

Swords still drawn they continued back into the passage, the heat surrounding them and glueing their clothes to their bodies. They came to the stretch where the first pigman had attacked them, and they stopped, listening quietly. There came a noise through the right wall, the same low grunting that they heard before. As quietly as possible, Xephos led the way down the hallway, silt sucking onto their boots and hot air causing runnels of sweat to flow down their foreheads. The left wall soon ended, and they stopped, Honeydew quietly cocking his crossbow as they listened once more.

The grunts sounded more numerous, but further away than back down the passage. Xephos peered around the corner and saw that the path split, one passage led left of them, a dull light glowing at the end, and the other ran back beside the tunnel they crouched at the end of, divided by a wall of the soft red stone. At the end of this one came another glow, cast by what Xephos made out to undoubtably be a monster spawner, the isolated flames occasionally flickering in and out of existence behind the dark iron bars. All about it stood the eerie forms of the undead pigmen, staring idly at the cage. Xephos witnessed a sudden burst of flame beside the spawner, a pigman suddenly appearing where one had not been previously. Not making a sound, Xephos eased back around the corner, unseen by the pigmen. He relayed the sight to Honeydew.

"_Ah shit, a spawner." _Honeydew whispered. _"Is there any point in trying to sneak past to the other passage?" _he asked.

Xephos thought on this. _It's only a six yard gap, but there's no chance of getting past them without being seen. _he thought. _There's around five of them, and they have better night vision than us. No, we'll be seen. Wait, how do I know they have night vision? _He pushed the thought from his mind. He did not want to think on this now. _"We can't just sit here or more will spawn."_ he whispered. _"We need to just go for it."_

Honeydew gave a nod and a grin. He unhooked his crossbow and stood straighter, his back to the wall, throwing down his torch softly behind him. The torch hit the ground with a dim thud, and from around the corner there came a unanimous grunt of surprise and then silence. Xephos glared at Honeydew as the sound of sets of bare feet walking through the silt towards them.

"Fuck's sake!" Honeydew roared, pushing Xephos aside and rounding the corner. The pigmen gave a furious squeal at the sight of an aggressor and with ten yards between Honeydew and them they charged. Honeydew wasted no time in loosing his crossbow bolt, which came to rest in the chest of the first pigman, dropping it as it's brothers trampled over it.

"Oh no." Xephos sighed as he too stepped into the new hallway, sword at the ready. The second pigman was already on Honeydew, a third not paying attention to Xephos in an attempt to get to the dwarf. Xephos made a wide cut, slicing open the abdomen of the third and slicing into the thigh of the second while Honeydew grappled with it. The beast gave a cry of pain and loosened it's grip on Honeydew's sword arm, allowing him to bury the short blade underneath it's breastbone. As he did so, Xephos brought his sabre around to divert a stab by the fourth pigman, it's right arm flying past Xephos's right with the block. Grabbing it's arm so that it was unable reform, he stepped to the pigman's left, bringing his own sword swiftly under it's arm, stepping aside as the fifth punched at him.

"_Come 'ere!"_ Honeydew yelled as he wrenched his sword free from the pigman carcass and made towards Xephos and the last pigman. Xephos allowed the momentum of the pigman's punch to carry it past him, and he stamped at the creature's knee as it stumbled by. There was a loud crack as the knee broke and it's squeal was only cut off as Honeydew's sword ran through it's throat, spilling blood over his front.

"I had that one." Xephos panted, slicking back his sweat laden hair.

"Can we just get out of this sweat-box? I need a fucking bath." Honeydew wiped his bloodied forearms on the hairy chest of an upturned dead pigman.

"Just light up the bloody spawner before more spawn." Xephos grunted. Honeydew hurriedly ran back to where he'd dropped the torch, coming back past Xephos and placing it on the spawner, now cast in some light other than it's own and unable to work. He lit off another torch off of it's flame, staring at the spectral pigman likeness inside the cage.

"How in hell would a single person get through here?" Honeydew asked. "I assume they send only one would-be Skylord in here at a time."

"I'd think most of them would look before they shoot." Xephos answered. "This trial is likely more about keeping a level head than killing everything."

"Oh." Honeydew said, starting back down the passage. "We probably shouldn't mention this to Lysander in that case."

"Probably not." Xephos laughed. "Well this is a lovely place, this." he commented after they started down the other corridor.

"Actually," Honeydew spoke. "I've been wondering: What's the point of all of this shit; trials and a giant fucking sky fortress for the government of one city. That's what Lysander said the Skylords were, didn't he?"

"You'll probably have to ask him yourself."

They continued to follow the paths, many led to dead ends or gouts of magma, forcing them to turn back. As they continued the heat did with them.

"Gods' sake." Honeydew said, taking off his helmet as he held his torch up. "If we don't find the way out soon I'm turning back. The heat's gonna cause me to faint in a moment."

"Let's just check around this corner here and then we can try head outside and cool off." Xephos agreed, pointing ahead to a corner that turned sharply right.

"Alright, but what are the chances of the end being there? We don't even know what we're looking for." Honeydew led the way ahead, groggily, yet as he turned the corner down the passage ahead of him was a doorway of bright white light, a cooling breeze blowing down the corridor. "Well fuck me." he grinned.

They ran for the opening, and in moment found themselves out in the open between the bulk of the structure they had exited and a sort of gazebo made from the same red stone. But they paid no mind, taking the next minute to lie down on the snow covered walkway, not noticing nor caring that either side of them loomed a long drop onto the hard sea ice below. They merely lay in the cold as the heat was sapped from their skin.

"Oh gods, this is heaven." Xephos moaned, rubbing wonderfully cold snow into his hair.

"It's so cold." Honeydew's voice was muffled as he lay face down. "It's so good."

Xephos looked up, wiping snow from his beard. There was still some light snowfall, the flakes floating down and settling onto his and Honeydew's heads. He got himself to his feet, looking ahead at the covered platform before him. He had hardly noticed it before, and had not at all noticed the altar at it's center.

"Come on, friend." he said, nudging Honeydew with his toe. The dwarf made a refusing noise and did not move. Xephos chuckled. "Come on, Honeydew we've got to get the treasure now."

Honeydew suddenly looked up, staring at the altar. _"Treasure!"_ he yelled, scrambling to his feet. They stood before the red altar, it's shape round and it's surface curved inward like a bowl. Inside the bowl sat five fist sized balls of the same red rock, all of them burning with a bright orange flame.

"What kind of treasure _is_ this?" Xephos asked as Honeydew walked around the other side of the altar. "Is it supposed to be the fire itself? That's a bit weird."

"Not at all." Honeydew said, reaching out and grabbing one of the balls at it's base, avoiding the flame. He held it balanced on his palm. "It's like the secret of this place _is_ fire. So that's it - The power of Fire."

Xephos opened the bag that Lysander had given him, finding three pockets at just the right size for the ball of fire and two other items of the same size. "Are we sure this won't burn the bag?" he asked.

"Lysander knew where we were coming, so I assume that it's magic like those buckets. It's probably a good thing that we didn't need to use those, either." Honeydew answered as he dropped the ball into the bag. Xephos held it at arms length for a moment until he was sure that it was not burning a hole in the cloth. "I think it probably won't hurt to hold onto those buckets, though." the dwarf chuckled as they headed back into the Trial of Fire to return to the central platform.

By the time that they had exited they were sweating again, Xephos more so due to the fireball at his side, and the snow had stopped falling, the wind dying with it. They walked back across the railless bridge to the center of Skyhold, when Xephos, looking over the left side of the walkway saw something between the floating stone beams, frozen in the thick sea ice nearly a mile below.

"What the hell is that?" he said, stopping and peering closer. He looked up at Honeydew, ahead of him who had stopped now too. "Can you see this?"

"What is it?" Honeydew asked, walking back over to Xephos and looking down onto the frozen sea. "What can you see, man?"

"Down here in the sea, look," he pointed to the strange green dome like shape, roughly half a mile away from Skyhold.

"It's an island?" Honeydew said questioningly.

"No, it looks like a turtle or something,"

"A turtle, that's it!"

The shape did appear to be that of a huge turtle half frozen into the ice, it's shell was a bluish green and the size of one of the smaller Skyhold platforms. Facing towards the center of Skyhold it's dull coppery head was raised just above the ice, one fin was also raised up, stuck in a permanent salute.

"It's weird." Xephos commented.

"It's kind of sad." Honeydew said. "You don't think that it's alive, do you? That it's stuck?"

"Have you ever heard of a turtle that big?" Xephos started back down the walkway. "It might be a rock that was carved or something. You're a dwarf, you know about stones. Have you ever heard about people doing this?"

"I don't know what they do here. I've never heard of a small island being carved into a turtle let alone be painted."

"We'll just have to ask Lysander about it as well." Xephos said as they walked back through the ring-wall.

The sky was now beginning to turn a bruised colour, and they headed to the next trial, located on the opposite side of Skyhold than the landing strip.

"Do we want to do do the next one now?" Xephos asked, looking up at the sky as they stood at the gateway of the main platform. "Or should we sleep until morning?"

"I think that we should just storm ahead." Honeydew stated, shrugging as he looked down the floating path. "Do you think that this is the ice one or the other one?"

"The mossy one?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know." Xephos sniffed. "Let's get on with it then." he walked through the gateway, Honeydew in tow.

They walked beneath the ring-walls, a sudden coldness hitting them as they neared the next platform. Darkness was beginning to creep in as the two realised that the walkway ahead of the room they stood in was made of a translucent blue ice, and the entire platform beyond it.

"_Trial of Ice._" Xephos read on the sign above the exit onto the dark and icy walkway. He glanced over to the large chest to his right, a sign above which he could only just make out in the half-light. He read this too. "_No torches permitted or recommended._"

"No, 'cause it'll melt the ice." Honeydew sighed.

"Gods." Xephos said as he cautiously stepped onto the walkway. It was firm, and while not slick, it would have proved treacherous in the growing darkness. "This is ridiculous."

"Maybe we should wait until daytime, Xephos?" Honeydew said.

"Do you think so?"

"Yeeaah...I think _maybe._" Honeydew lightly continued. "I don't fancy going through an ice labyrinth in the dark."

"Well in that case we should try and find our house, I guess." Xephos turned away from the walkway and turned back towards the center of Skyhold.

They wandered back around the central hill to the house that they commandeered the last night. At Xephos' insistence they swapped beds, Honeydew taking the couch and Xephos the bed. They ate out of their supplies of dried meat and hard tack given to them by Isabel, finishing with a few jaffa cakes each for afters. Yet the two adventurers, unused to such consistent sleeping patterns took a long while to fall asleep. Xephos found himself lying on the feather bed, the feeling unfamiliar and nearly uncomfortable after months of sleeping in the wilderness. He listened to the world around him - Honeydew was beginning to snore quietly, there was the sound of foliage gentle being tousled by a passing breeze, but he could hear another sound too. Just beyond the familiar noises, there came another: a hum, distant and constant. Xephos closed his eyes and attempted to focus on the hum, pin-pointing it's location. But before he was able to do much else, he was asleep.

"Oh gods, it's beautiful." Honeydew gasped as they walked across the glass blue ice walkway. The platform was the same shape as the Trial of Fire, save the weaving beams of red stone. Here, between the squashed sphere and the platform walls there was and expanse of flawlessly clear blue ice. Topping the shining dome of ice was the copse of dark green fir trees. "Do you think that we can just go around the side?" Honeydew looked at the plane of ice surrounding the huge ice bubble.

"I don't think so," Xephos looked ahead at the entrance to the Trial of Ice. Beyond the doorway the space was filled with a dull blue light as the late morning sun shone through the ice. "It doesn't look very thick." he added as he looked to the ice rim. He could clearly see the turtle far off to the left, frozen fast to the hard sea ice.

"That's a point." Honeydew agreed, testing the ice with a foot. It was steady, but he still did not set foot on it. He sighed. "Let's get on with this, then."

Honeydew led the way into the Trial, the bite of the surrounding ice settling on their skin. The doorway opened to a narrow corridor, wide enough for only one man abreast, walls five yards high and carved from the same blue ice. The corridor immediately turned right, and then left again twice. The corridors continued their winding path until it began to branch out into several different path.

"Is this a maze?" Xephos asked from behind Honeydew, fog condensing on his breath. The light that streamed through the dome above them was dull and the same blue tone as the walls around them, making them nearly indistinguishable. The only way that the two were able to tell when a turn occurred in the wall was by keeping one hand on the walls either side of them.

"This is going to be tricky." Honeydew muttered. "We can't see a bloody thing."

"Just keep following the right wall." Xephos said. "That's the rule for mazes." Honeydew nodded in agreement.

They spent an hour twisting trough the expanse of the maze, often doubling back as they met with a dead end. The technique that they used meant that they never had to wonder if they were going in circles. Honeydew, still leading suddenly cursed and stopped.

"What is it?" Xephos asked. He'd been on edge through the entire labyrinth, anticipating mobs to attack any moment.

"There's stairs here, I think," Honeydew said painfully. "I hit my shin on them."

Xephos looked ahead, squinting in the flat light, but it did seem that before Honeydew were a set of shallow, flat stairs. "So there's an above bit?" he asked. "Well, let's head up there. It's clear that we're supposed to go that way." Honeydew grumbled, still rubbing his shin, but led the way up the stairway.

It reached above the walls of the below, and had no railing or walls of it's own, making progress slow and cautious. Honeydew suddenly gave another start, as after a straight stretch of fifteen yards the walkway dropped back down to the below level of the maze again. They walked down the stairway and back into the maze, continuing to follow the right wall. The path led them along unhindered for a while longer, before ending in another set of icy stairs.

"I can't believe this." Honeydew said at the top of the icy walkway. "It's a three-dimensional maze."

"Made of ice, too." Xephos added as they slowly walked over the slippery path. "And you can't bloody see." he glanced up to observe the room, which, to such a glance, seemed empty in the flat, coloured light.

The walkway once again led back down into the maze. They once more followed the right wall. The task became a monotony, and they didn't realise that they'd come to the exit until the bright daylight streamed in on them from the exit.

The light, white and shining, was blinding and euphoric simultaneously. And the staggering with which Honeydew and Xephos stepped from the Trial was only one part from shielding their eyes, and another from thankfulness to be outside. After recovering from their momentary blindness, Honeydew led the way to the altar beneath an ice gazebo.

"What's going to be in this one?" Xephos wondered sarcastically as he followed Honeydew up to the dipped center of the pedestal.

Within, there lay eight spheres of snow, perfectly white, perfectly shaped and smooth as polished marble.

"Snow?" Xephos said.

"Snow!" Honeydew cheered.

"I was expecting ice." Xephos said as he opened the grey bag at his side. The ball of flaming rock was still nestled peacefully in one of the three compartments, and he gently reached out to fill the second. At a touch the ball of snow was pleasantly cold, and it's surface, glazed by ice, smooth to feel. He placed it in the grey bag next to the flaming red sphere, a sharper contrast as black and white. He looked back up at Honeydew. "Well that's that." he said. "Now we just have to go back through the maze-"

"Fuck that." Honeydew said, walking over to the edge of the walkway where the brittle ice met the path.

"Don't try it!" Xephos yelled, but too late. Honeydew unceremoniously and uncautiously stepped onto the glassy ice, and to Xephos' surprise, it didn't shudder once.

Honeydew looked over his shoulder. He gave a weak laugh. "We could've just gone 'round the whole time." he tried to turn, but under his boots he slipped on the slick ice and fell landing solidly on his back. "Oh for goodness' sake." he said as he sat himself up, Xephos cautiously stepping onto the ice beside him. Making sure that his feet were firmly set on the ice, he reached down and helped him friend to get onto his feet.

They made their way around the Trial of Ice using a cautious half skating half shimmying movement, keeping close to the outer wall, as translucent as the ice under their shaky feet, sunlight glinting off of it's surface. They had made their way half way around the dome of the Trial when Honeydew pointed through the ice wall to the outside, calling Xephos' attention to the huge turtle. They were able to observe it here head-on, the huge face and carapace of the trapped reptile seemed to have the composition and presence of solid rock, the dull copper and green glowing in the clear daylight.

"He's amazing." Honeydew said. "He looks massive too. I'd like to find out who made it."

"Something looks wrong with his eyes though," Xephos shielded his eyes from the sun and peered closer. "Yeah, they're both different colours." he confirmed.

"Oh yeah," Honeydew agreed as he looked closer. One of the beast's eyes were a hollow, shining black, but the other, left eye was a dead white, as though blind." "he's a bit _derp._" Honeydew added, using the dwarven term for silly or clumsy. "A _derpy _turtle."

"_Derp_-turtle?" Xephos suggested as they continued onwards around the rim of the Ice Trial.

It was just past midday when they had circled around the ice mass and found themselves back at the gateway to the Skyhold, and it was with great thankfulness that they stepped back onto the firmer walkway. Walking leisurely back toward the center of the floating complex, Honeydew looked ahead and saw a figure leaning against the gate leading through the ring-wall.

"Xephos," Honeydew said. "Lysander's here."

Their pace quickened as they hurried towards Lysander, leaning under the archway, smoking his pipe and staring at the vapors. His thick brows were furrowed in thought and frustration. He looked up as the sound of their approach, and while his eyes spoke of no weariness, he looked as though he hadn't slept in all the time since they had arrived.

"I hope that we didn't keep you waiting." Xephos said as they approached.

"So, you've come to congratulate us!" Honeydew stated.

"Something ill is afoot." Lysander's voice rumbled like an oncoming storm.

"Oh," Honeydew frowned. "that doesn't sound good."

"Not at all." Xephos agreed.

Lysander stood up straighter, taking another draught of his pipe before he spoke. "I have questioned the carnival folk, and they are . . . good people." he sounded as though he wasn't content with the word good.

"Apart from that Bruno, of course," Honeydew said nonchalantly. "he's a right arse-hole."

Lysander looked at Honeydew with grave disapproval, quietening the dwarf's laughter. He continued. "I do not think that Vitali is telling the truth about what is happening here."

"Oh no," Xephos muttered.

"You don't think that he's a member of the Cult, do you?" Honeydew asked lowly.

Lysander did not answer, instead he continued once more.

"I need your help to find out what happened to the Skylords." he said. "Madame Nubescu tells me that a man arrived here last night, a prisoner of Vitali's."

"While we were sleeping?" Xephos moaned.

"He is held in a secret cell below the Hold." Lysander finished. "I will seek out Vitali, you shall speak to Nubescu."

"But what about the last Trial-" Xephos began, before he was cut off by Honeydew.

"Please!" he yelled. "Anything but that!"

"You must find out as much about this man as is possible, who he is and why he is here. Nubescu will be able to shed light on this." Lysander stated.

"I don't want to speak to Nubescu, please!" Honeydew begged as Lysander turned and walked back through the gateway, ignoring him. "I'll fight a dragon, I'll do anything! Please! She'll swindle us out of more gold and the stink of here weird smoke will hang to us for days!"

Xephos laughed as Lysander disappeared around the corner, Honeydew still calling after him.


	29. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter29

Chapter 29: The Cage

"Alright, where's the carnival?" Xephos asked as they exited the archway and headed for the green mount at the center of Skyhold.

"It'll be where the ship was," Honeydew stopped, gaze following the ring-wall on both sides. "see if you can spot the ship over the walls." he said as they stated up the hill.

They reached the top of the hill and the foot of the thick tower that sat atop it. The summit offered a view of the walls unbroken by the trees that lined it's slopes, and as the two walked about the perimeter of the tower they saw the bulbous white shape of the Carnival's airship jutting over the wall between the Skyhold's entrance and the final Trial, the painted face of Bruno peering over the wall. The two started down the hill again through the trees towards the wall. They slowed their steep decent by grabbing hold of tree trunks as they scrambled past, sliding on the slope of the hill, slick with snow-melt. The ground soon leveled out and as they neared the tree line Honeydew stopped Xephos while they still stood in the cover of the trees.

"There's Lysander." he pointed ahead, where the Skylord stood peering into a window of a small house.

They both knelt in the shadows, Xephos grasping a tree to his right as fog formed on their breath. Lysander continued look through the windows, moving from one to the other occasionally. Xephos sighed.

"Why are we doing this?" he asked. "I thought we decided that Lysander wasn't evil, so why are we hiding?"

"I think he's looking for Vitali, so he can distract him, remember?" Honeydew reminded him. "It'd look suspicious if Vitali came out of that house and saw us heading to the carnival. We should just wait until Lysander moves on, then we know that he's not there, and if Vitali is watching him he won't see us."

And Lysander did leave, only moments later, turning and walking quickly and with great purpose clockwise around the hill. They sat waiting until he was out of sight, when Xephos glanced at the tree that he was crouching behind.

"What's up with this tree?" he asked, staring up at it's head of foliage where there sat many small red fruits nestled in the foliage. "It's got apples! In this climate, how is that possible?"

"Well I'm glad that you're prioritising." Honeydew said exasperatedly, stepping from the cover of the trees. "He's gone, let's go."

He led Xephos across the frozen stream and towards the wall, where a small gateway stood in the rock-face. Above the doorway the words _"Carnival this way!"_ were written on a bright sign the had been hurriedly hung there.

"Looks like Banjo's been trying to attract some business, from the Skylords no less." Xephos laughed.

The doorway led to a sharply curving corridor that brought them to the gap between the first and second walls where beams of stone crossed over each other back and forth across the gap. Spanning there gaps planks had been laid, creating walkways to the tents of the Carnival del Banjo, their stakes hammered into the solid stone of the Skyhold, and their floors made of more planks laid out. High above, the carnival airship was floating lazily between the walls, a few of it's planks missing from it's hull in order to create the precarious carnival's grounds. Tottering across a plank gangway Mr. Banjo had his back to them and did not see them as he vanished into a tent, where the grotesque bulk of Bruno was sweeping snow through gaps in the stone and wood grid, sending it falling onto the sea ice far below. In spite of the weather he still only wore his tiny pair of pink pants, his skin turning a similar shade as the fabric in the weather.

"Well, this is the Carnival." Xephos said as they stepped onto one of the planks. The length of the boards had been covered in gravel and frozen in place, offering some extra grip for their feet. "This isn't a very friendly location for it, though."

Honeydew soon caught sight of Bruno, standing next to the opposite wall.

"Oh gods, it's my nemesis." he groaned. Bruno suddenly turned to face them, and with the speed of a bullet he hurled a large snowball directly at Honeydew. The ball collided with the dwarf's beard and he would've stumbled backwards and off the board into the sky, had Xephos not been standing behind him. "He threw a snowball at me!" Honeydew yelled as Bruno laughed at them across the maze of walkways.

"Let's go find Madame Nubescu," Xephos chuckled. "That tent over there looks like her one that we last saw." he said as he pointed over at a large red tent to their right.

They followed the walkways to the red tent, _"Madame Nubscu's Tent of Wonders"_ painted on the flaps. Xephos led as they pushed their way into the dimly lit tent, where they were greeted by the familiar smell of incense that had hung in the air of Nubescu's previous tent. This one was considerably lacking in grandeur compared to the one outside Verigan's Hold, it was smaller and not as decorated, looking more like Nubescu's quarters rather than voodoo workshop, with a stretcher and side table in one corner and a small dresser beside it. The only sign of luxury seemed to be an ornate wooden table in the room's center with a crystal ball atop it.

Just as Xephos stepped into the tent he saw movement at the rear of the tent as Madame Nubescu, back facing them, disappeared down a hole in the floor boards, trapdoor slamming shut behind her.

"What was that?" Honeydew asked as he entered behind Xephos.

"Nubescu just went down a trapdoor over here." Xephos said as he strode across the dark room to the hatch, set roughly into the floor beside her bedside table. "She went below."

"What?" Honeydew asked.

"...Below?" Xephos said, looking at Honeydew then back to the trapdoor. "...But aren't we in the middle of the air?" he said, starting for the trapdoor, then stopping. "Is there a platform down below us? What is she doing down there?"

"Well last time she had a cellar place, so I guess that she has another one here." Honeydew reasoned.

"Let's look around a bit." Xephos turned away from the hatch and walked to Nubescu's bedside table. "We should see what we can find out here first before talking to her." on the table was a small black book, with the words on the inside cover reading _"Nubescu's Diary"_. Xephos picked up the book and began flipping through it.

"You're reading her diary?" Honeydew said.

"It may have some information about what went on- What the hell does this say!?" he suddenly burst. He'd reached the last page that had been written in, and while all other pages were filled with bland, ambiguous drivel, the words here were concise and chilling.

"What is it?" Honeydew asked.

"Nubescu's diary:" Xephos began. "_"I killed them Skylords good."_!" he held out the book to Honeydew to prove his point. The dwarf read it and threw it back at Nubescu's bed. He took a moment and breathed deeply.

"Look," he said slowly. "Think about this, right? Last time we jumped to conclusions, didn't we? We though that Lysander had burnt down Mistral City, but it _ wasn't him, _was it?"

"...no."

"So now it could be that someone is framing Nubescu. So let's not jump to conclusions again, it's just a little book that could've been forged. We need to question her like reasonable people. Alright?"

"Okay," Xephos agreed. _It is entirely possible._ he thought. _That it could be a forgery. But then again we always thought that there was something off with this carnival_.

They walked over to the trapdoor and Xephos bent to open it. As he did a cold breeze greeted him while he stared down a rope ladder to a wooden platform below, rocking slowly in the wind. He turned and started down the rope ladder and as he was halfway down and Honeydew was following, he turned his head and saw that the platform, five by seven yards was suspended by thick ropes from the underside of the Skyhold. Surrounding the platform were several others, all swaying in the wind and about two yards apart from each other.

"Oh gods." Xephos said as he set foot on the moving platform, making certain his balance was sure. "Honeydew, be careful here."

"_Oh gods!_" the dwarf yelled as he saw the platforms all dangling from the ceiling, open sky and frozen sea below. "Nubescu?" he said warily, looking across the platforms. There, about five platforms away, Nubescu stood on a larger platform, a large object set into the center.

Honeydew eventually made his way to the foot of the ladder. Here they both stood clutching the rope ladder for support in the wind for a moment. The walls of Skyhold had blocked the path of the wind for the last two days, and when they now felt it it was cold and mean. The underside of the main platform of Skyhold was behind them to their left, a mass of grey stalactites, a white crystal gleaming among the upside down stone forest every so often. The same plug of granite spikes hung from the underbelly of the four smaller platforms about the Skyhold too, although only two could presently be seen at their location.

"Gods, we're gonna have to jump across the aren't we?" Xephos said, looking at the platform before them. When the wind blew at the right time the gap between them shortened to a single yard, but at other times it grew to three and a half.

"Look, we just need to time it." Honeydew grunted. "When it comes closer again, we will have to jump to it."

"Oh alright." Xephos groaned.

They stood side by side as the wind blew the platforms closer together, when Honeydew gave a call and they both ran to the end of their platform and jumped. They flew over the gap and landed in the middle of the next, falling to their knees for lack of purchase to stop them running off the other end. They continued this method relatively unchanged until the landed on Nubescu's platform, grabbing onto what they now saw was a cauldron in the center to slow themselves. The cauldron appeared to have a hollow bottom, and the water that filled it and fell from it had the thick slow decent of water from an enchanted bucket.

Nubescu had seen them since the second platform and had been calling out to them every so often. The two were too absorbed to tell if her calls were taunts or encouragement.

"Welcom' mon!" Nubescu laughed, a horrid croaking sound. She stood on the moving floor easily and looked slightly smug, if not confused at their being there.

"Nubescu," Xephos said. "We need to talk to you about-"

"Xephos." Honeydew interjected. "Look over there."

Xephos turned away from Nubescu to where Honeydew pointed out across the sky to a large cage hanging from the ceiling where a large brown man sat facing them, head slumped. He had no room to stand, and wore a painted wooden mask.

"It's a cage?" Xephos said.

"It's a man in a cage." Honeydew corrected.

"It that _Um Bongo?"_ Xephos peered closer. "Is that him in the cage?"

"Why has Nubescu got him in a cage?" Honeydew turned to Nubescu. _"What the hell is going on here you crazy broad!"_ he yelled.

"So much for acting like decent people." Xephos sighed.

"Uh, sorry." Honeydew said, looking abashed. "Maybe you should take over, Xephos." he added.

"Dwarf, what be da matter?" Nubescu said as she recovered from the shock of Honeydew's outburst.

Xephos faced her, making his expression very serious.

"Your diary upstairs in your tent said that you killed the Skylords." he stated, then turned to look over at the cage, hanging about twenty yards away. _"And,"_ he added. "You have Um Bongo in a cage!"

"Choose your words carefully, Nubescu." Honeydew warned.

"I kill de Skylords?" Nubescu said. "Oh! No mon," she said, sounding confused before trying to explain. "I didn' do dis! What diary do jah be talkin' abou'?"

"The one upstairs on your table." Xephos said sternly.

"And dat little cage mon, he was put dere but Vitali. And I dun' 'ave a diary mon!" Nubescu croaked.

"This is all very fishy." Xephos said lowly, turning to Honeydew.

"I think that someone is trying to frame Nubescu." Honeydew confided. Xephos agreed with him.

"I think that we should try to get Um Bongo out of his cage. He might be able to help us." Xephos said. "We can ask him how he got up the coast, too. There's no way that he traveled up here on foot in a day. He was with Spacker as well wasn't he?"

"Oh gods, is Spacker here too?"

"He might be." Xephos looked over at Um Bongo, sitting limply in his cage, masked head leaning against the iron bars. "Maybe Vitali captured them while he was out flying in an airship."

"But even if he saw Um Bongo why would he capture him?"

"I think that Um Bongo will be able to answer that, if we can get to him."

"I try to get him ou' mon," Nubescu interjected. "can' do it mon."

"Well how would we get over to him?" Honeydew asked as the wind blew the platform backwards. The sky was beginning to darken and the only source of light seemed to be coming from the crystals stuck in the underside of Skyhold.

Xephos looked over at Um Bongo's cage as the platform swayed, when the motion beneath his feet gave him an idea. "We can swing across to him." he said, looking at Honeydew. "If we run back and forth on this platform the weight will swing us towards Um Bongo's cage." There then followed a silence that was broken only by the sound of Bruno sweeping snow off of the platform above.

"Right," Honeydew said. "For fuck's sake."

"It'll work!" Xephos said in exasperation.

Honeydew sniffed and looked thoughtfully at Um Bongo's cage.

"Fine," he said. "let's do it, then." he moved to the right corner of the platform facing the cage and grasped the thick rope.

Xephos went to the corner on the left and on his count, timed with the wind, they began running to the rear of the platform as it swung backwards in the wind, then forward again as it swung back. It took a long time for them to perfect this but eventually their momentum was gaining and their swing was becoming larger, they were now only seven or eight yards from Um Bongo's cage.

"I'm too ol' for dis, mon!" Nubescu wailed as she clung to the cauldron in the middle of the platform.

"You're still here?" Honeydew yelled as they ran backwards, swung around the rear ropes and ran back to the front.

"We're nearly there!" Xephos yelled, the cold wind in his hair and the ropes creaking loudly.

It was now that Um Bongo, who'd been asleep, awoke. He was bitterly cold, dressed only in a skirt of hides and his mask, and unprotected from the wind by the cage, that was also too small for him to even stand up in, leaving him cramped. He saw the platform swinging towards him and immediately recognised two of the three astride it.

"Is that you heroes?" he called over to them. "It me! Um Bongo! Take-a me with you!"

"Oh, Um Bongo." Honeydew sighed.

"A few more runs and we'll be in reach." Xephos said as they turned and ran back down the length of the swinging platform. "I'll jump on it, but you'll have to keep the platform swinging while I free Um Bongo enough so we can get back."

"You might need this to open it." Honeydew said, tossing the diamond headed pick to Xephos, who nearly fumbled it over the edge. "It should crack any lock that you encounter on the cage."

Two swings later and the edge of the platform lightly knocked into Um Bongo's cage, swinging it slightly, and on the next, Xephos steeled himself and ran to the middle of the platform, grabbing onto the cage bars as the platform pulled out from under him. He now clung to the cold metal cage with Um Bongo staring up at him.

"We're here to get you out, Um Bongo." he said as he looked over at Honeydew, scampering up and down the length of the swaying wooden platform. Xephos lowered himself and began to look for a lock on the cage as his hands grew numb from the cold iron they grasped. He found the door facing the platform, and a heavy padlock fastened it shut. Angling himself carefully he aimed at the lock with the small pick. The lock's size made it easy to hit, but the progress was slow. Xephos' fingers were losing their feeling when he was nearly finished with the lock, but Honeydew then cried out. Xephos looked up suddenly to see him hanging off the far side of the platform, where he'd fallen off. The dwarf's hand was wrapped around the rope in the corner and his legs were treading air furiously.

"Don't take-a me with you down there!" Um Bongo said.

"Are you alright!?" Xephos yelled, as he too hung precariously over the sea.

"I'm good!" he replied as he pulled himself back onto the platform without the help of Nubescu, who was dry-retching into her cauldron. By the time he got back to running up and down the length of the platform it had lost much of it's swing, and by himself he was unable to create more, only maintain it.

Xephos was finally able to crack open the padlock and open the cage door, but by this time the gap between the platform and the cage had stretched to six yards at it's closest swing, and Honeydew was tiring.

"Stay in there." Xephos told Um Bongo as the island man tried to climb out of the cage. "I'm going to swing us closer." he steadied himself and waited for the wind to push them, throwing his weight into every movement that the cage made. The sea of ice far below was covered in the blackness of a moonless night, and the fall looked as to be into oblivion, but Xephos continued to swing the little cage in the light of the crystals. Soon he managed to close the distance, but the swinging of the cage and the platform were out of time; one reaching it's nearest point as the other left it's furthest. Still throwing himself into the momentum of the cage, Xephos guessed that if they jumped at the highest point of their swing they would land on the back of the platform as it swung in under them.

"Um Bongo!" he said to the man in the cage. "Get ready to jump! We're going to land on the platform!"

Despite groaning and whimpering, Um Bongo moved himself into the mouth of the cage, crouching in it's opening, ready to leap. Xephos gave one last heave as he sent the cage flying forwards.

"Jump now!" he cried as they reached their apex, grabbing Um Bongo through the bars and hauling the huge man out with him as he jumped.

As they fell though the air the platform moved under them, Honeydew coming to a halt at one of the ropes and Nubescu clinging to the cauldron. They landed hard beside Nubescu, but the inertia continued to carry them towards the edge. Crying out as the slid, Xephos grabbed Nubescu's ankle, who yelped in fright, while Um Bongo shot past Xephos and was halfway over the edge before he grasped Xephos' leg.

"Hold on!" Xephos yelled, both at Nubescu and Um Bongo.

Honeydew asked if they were alright from the corner of the platform as the swinging slowed. The weight of Um Bongo was straining him, but that was nothing compared to Nubescu, who was baring his and Um Bongo's weight as she held onto the cauldron. The movement eventually came to a halt, and Honeydew ran over to help Um Bongo up. Xephos thanked Madame Nubescu for allowing him to hold onto her, but she only moaned about the weight on her legs.

"Sorry that I dwarfed that up," Honeydew said, laughing. "I nearly fell off, and so did you!"

"Well, we got Um Bongo out, so now we need to find out what he knows." Xephos lightly punched his friend in the chest.

"I was put in dere my man with pale skin!" Um Bongo spoke up after overhearing, his dark eyes darting behind his painted wooden mask. "More pale than you. Like snow." he said in his rough voice.

"What man?" Xephos said, turning to him.

"Him be called Vitilly." Um Bongo stood up straight and twisted his neck, cracking his vertebrae as he stretched. He had been in the cramped cage for many hours.

"What did you do to get put in there?" Xephos asked again.

"When me and Dead Dwarf leave the big boat, we walk along beach to head east. When we see big mountains, we go that way. It leads to Dead Dwarf's home and my home is that way too. We left the forest and walk along hills to get to mountains, but Bongo sees sky ship going to mountain too and thinks it will give us ride. Dead Dwarf doesn't think so, and hides when Bongo waves at it. He was right. Sky ship drops net onto Bongo and the bad man Vitilly takes him on ship. Vitilly flies on very fast sky ship to mountains. He stops at big stone door. Bongo thinks this is Dead Dwarf's home. Vitilly leaves Bongo on ship and goes and talks with dwarves. Soon he comes back to Bongo at ship and we fly into sky. Ship was very fast but was long and cold ride. We come to flying village at morning and he leave Bongo tied up in sky ship! But Bongo strong, and escapes. Bongo not know where he is and is scared. He follow Vitilly and watch him. I see Vitilly by apple tree. He was putting bones in ground."

"Oh..." Xephos said. "... Gods, it might be the apple tree that I was next to on the hill when we were watching Lysander. There were bones under there!?"

"The look fresh." Um Bongo added.

"He was disposing of a body?" Honeydew whispered to Xephos.

"Vitilly sees Bongo, and catches him again. He is very strong for small man. He put Bongo in the little cold cage." Um Bongo sniffed.

"Right." Xephos breathed. "Oh gods."

"This is bad." Honeydew agreed.

"We need to talk to Lysander." Xephos said, turning to the platforms leading back to the ladder.

"Take-a me with you!" Um Bongo yelled in protest.

"No, look Um Bongo," Xephos turned back to him. "Stay here."

"I am good jump." Um Bongo claimed, barging past Xephos to leap over the gap between the two platforms. Whether Um Bongo was legitimately a good jumper or if the escape from the cage had instilled a false sense of confidence in him cannot be said, but as he jumped the wind subsided and the gap increased. With flailing arms Um Bongo fell short of the platform, plummeting into the dark below, wailing as he fell.

"Oh gods!" Honeydew yelled. _"Um Bongo!"_he called after him. There followed a silence, but they heard no sound of Um Bongo's death to break it.

". . . shit . . ." Xephos breathed.

"Gods." Honeydew said, looking at where the big man had vanished, egged on by his child-like confidence. "He just wanted show how good a jumper he was."

"Fate is cruel." Nubescu spoke grimly from behind them. "For a mon to escape cap'ivity only to die. Bu' a' leas' he would die a free mon."

"That is something I guess." Xephos said, looking down into the dark. "It is a sad place for a body to lie."

They said a few words for their friend, then thanked Nubescu and drearily if not more carefully traversed the platforms, climbing back into Nubescu's tent and out into the carnival, where night had fallen heavily over the rest of Skyhold. They followed the precarious walkways back to the opening in the wall, where in their path stood the strongman, Bruno.

"Hello little babby man!" he sneered in his thick accent. As he talked a single green leaf fell from his mouth. He gave a sudden cough and three more shot out.

"What are you doing?" Honeydew asked him irritably, looking at the leaves settling on the walkway.

"Stupid dwarf! Bruno still spitting up leaves since tree grew on him." he said angrily.

Still sobered by Um Bongo's death, Honeydew gave a grimmace, recalling the image of the two huge arms of the strongman jutting either side of a tree.

"So the tree magics are causing you to cough up leaves?" he reached inconspicuously into his pack. Bruno was blocking their escape, but he had a plan to move him. "Well I wonder what would happen if a tree grew on you _again!"_ he suddenly pulled out the sack filled with the enchanted fertiliser, swinging it into his other hand.

Bruno recognised the bag and gave a frightened leap backwards into the corridor. Honeydew stepped forwards before he could block them off again and pushed past Bruno, who was trying to recover some dignity as Honeydew and Xephos passed him somberly. "Dwarf is weak to fight with tricks." he grumbled as he lumbered back into the cold night on the walkways.

The night was cool too for Xephos and Honeydew when they stepped back into the center of Skyhold. Xephos looked back over to the hill, immediately spotting the apple tree on the base. He was beginning to start for it when Lysander appeared at his left, leaning on the wall.

"Oh, Lysander." he said. "Did you find Vitali?"

"No, but I came to find you so we might search his house to find where he is through clues."

"No need." Honeydew said as Xephos began walking to the apple tree.

"What do you mean? Lysander asked as Honeydew walked past him after Xephos. "What did Nubescu say? What did you find?"

"A clue." Xephos said grimly as reached the apple tree, waiting for the others to catch up to him. When Honeydew reached him he set the dwarf to digging about the base of the tree with the entrenching tool that he'd taken from the Wall, which confused Lysander greatly.

"Vitali's house is this way!" he protested. "What happened at the carnival? Stop being so cryptic and explain!"

Xephos gave the Skylord, who clearly disliked being in a position of not knowing, a summary of their adventure. He told him of the diary, Nubescu and how they freed Um Bongo and what he told them.

"And then," he swallowed. "Um Bongo went and fell off the fucking edge. Those _fucking platforms!" _he swore. "Why are they _even there!?"_ he yelled. _"What are they for!?"_

Lysander who'd been silent now seemed taken aback at the revelation of Vitali's nature.

"Those platforms are used storing supplies. She's using them for a back-porch!" he grunted. "From what Um Bongo said Vitali must have flown to Stoneholm, the dwarf city ruled by King Finbar. Why would he go there?"

"How far away is it?" Xephos asked.

"Oh, miles and miles." Lysander replied. "But it would not taken Vitali very long to get there. His airship is called the _Thunderbolt_ for good reason. It could've reached Stoneholm and back in the same night, but only just."

"Um Bongo said that it was a fast ship." Xephos mumbled. He looked over at Honeydew, still dredging through the dirt around the tree in a progressively larger and larger hole. "Anything yet, Honeydew?" he asked.

"Nothing." he replied.

Xephos sighed in exasperation.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled. "This is going to be like that time that we dug around the watchtower at Mistral City for hours on end-"

"Here! Here!" Honeydew called out suddenly. Xephos hurriedly stepped over.

"What is it, the bones?" he asked.

"No, it's a hole or a passage." Honeydew said as Lysander stood over the hole.

The roots of the tree were bent in a doorway shape around the mouth of a tight dirt tunnel, only high enough to crouch through and barely wide enough to fit through. "Is that a trail of blood?" Honeydew said as he stared at the floor of the opening, where bloody drag-marks disappeared into the dark, crimson smearing the walls occasionally.

Xephos reached into his pocket and pulled out two pebbles of glowstone, throwing one to Honeydew as he held it's twin himself.

"You first." he said to his friend. Honeydew looked at him imploringly and then at the tunnel, then back at Xephos' strict face.

"...okay..." he whimpered as he lowered himself into the mouth of the tunnel. Lysander followed him and then Xephos. The ceiling was so low that they had to crouch, and the walls so narrow that their shoulders brushed either wall, taking dirt off as they went, and forcing the broader Honeydew to have himself on an angle as he walked. "There's blood on the ground, Xephos!" he moaned, the honey-like glow of the stones they held barely illuminating the dark. A mounting sense of horror was slowly grasping them as they continued, the heady aroma of the earth juxtaposed with the unmistakable smell of decay and death.

"Where does this go?" Xephos wondered aloud.

"I do not know." Lysander groaned as he squeezed through a tight gap. "I didn't know that this existed."

"There's something here." Honeydew said suddenly and quietly.

"What is it?" Xephos asked.

"The ceiling drops down and there's a hole that you have to crawl through." Honeydew said. "Move back, you two. I'm going to crawl through. There's just enough room."

They did as he asked, and Xephos ducked down so through Lysander's legs he saw Honeydew get onto his belly and start to crawl through a hole in the earth. He pulled himself forward for five or so yards until he suddenly got up into a crouch.

"What's in there?" Xephos hissed.

Honeydew was silent until he called back though the hole very lowly.

"Come through here very quietly."

Lysander got down and crawled through next, Xephos didn't even wait for him to get to the end before following. By the time Xephos got to the other side Lysander was groaning in woe. The room that they crouched in was a low ceilinged and wide dirt antechamber, blood covering the floor, but unadorned save for the walls where, five skeletons, most were old and covered in cobwebs and skylord uniforms that were nought but rags now. Above each were words carved into the dirt walls by some instrument, the verses of some macabre poem.

"What the hell..." Honeydew breathed.

"No," Lysander groaned, taking Honeydew's stone and running between the bodies. "no." he sobbed. _**"Nooo!"**_

Xephos moved to the nearest body on his left; the oldest, wearing a faded yellow coat and a long white beard.

"_Skylord Vimes._" he read the words carved above it. "_I stuck a meathook in his back,_" he moved to the next, a slight skeleton with a blue hood. "_I snapped his spine with a mighty crack._ _Skylord Horus._"

Lysander sobbed.

"_Skylord James._ _At morning light our swords did clash,_" he read above a man in a green tunic, then continued. "_Nothing left but bones and ash. Skylord Finnigan._" he moved to the next. "_I popped his eyes and drank the goo. I took his blade and ran him through. Skylord Valetius._" he finished over a skeleton with a long blue coat, some blood and flesh still clinging to his bones.

"My friends, all of them." Lysander groaned. "Where is Vitali? I will show him that there is still one Skylord in the Skyhold, and it shall not be his until I lie here, with my comrades."

"I hope it doesn't come to that." Xephos said. "But where do we go now?" he asked. "There's no way out except the way we came in."

"Give me the glowstone for a moment." Honeydew walked over to Xephos and took the glowing pebble. "There may be a secret door here somewhere." he said as he stepped to the wall, holding the light near it as he felt into any nook that he saw as he made his way around the room, crouching below the low roof.

Xephos moved over to Lysander.

"I had hoped," he said when he saw Xephos approach. "that they might still have lived, if only in captivity, and they might be freed. Or had been put into exile. I was a fool though."

"I did notice though," Xephos said lowly as Honeydew swore in frustration. "There wasn't an Amber amount the bodies, Vitali did say that she'd died didn't he? Maybe she escaped."

"No," Lysander sighed. "I found here grave the first night we were here. I cannot know if Vitali was reckless in her death and left her body for the other skylords to find or if her death was even an accident. But something that I do know is that Jasper and I are the last of the Skylords." he sighed.

"True enough for now, but soon Honeydew and I will be ones too. I'm sure others will join too."

"Well shit!" Honeydew yelled. They looked up as he walked towards them. "There is no door here. I checked, and that's the word of a dwarf." he groaned. "I just don't get where he could be."

"We'll have to go and search the rest of the houses." Lysander said. "Notch be damned, he could have tunnels all over! But I'll dig up the Skyhold if I have to!" he started for the hole. Honeydew followed, and Xephos was about to as well, when he turned to look at the bodies and he noticed their placement. They were all five of them placed at even points about the circular room. Xephos called to Honeydew to pass him the glowstone, and when he did, he looked at the floor and saw from one skeleton to the next across the room a pentagram had been painted in the blood of the bodies on the points.

"Look at this." Xephos said. "There's a pentagram connecting the bodies."

Lysander stopped halfway into the hole.

"So what?" Honeydew said. "It's creepy, but that doesn't change anything."

"Doesn't it?" Xephos asked. He walked to the center of the star and knelt beside it. "Oh please work." he breathed. Xephos stuck his hand into the dirt at the very center of the pentagram and immediately felt a ring of iron under his fingers. "Holy shit." he breathed.

"What is it?" Honeydew said as he a Lysander crawled their was over to Xephos' side.

He gave a heave and lifted the large ring, and moved the lid away from the ladder that led down a dark hole.

"Oh dear." Honeydew said.

"Oh gods." Xephos agreed. "Do you want to go down first?" he asked.

"Tell you what mate, you found it this time,_ you_ can go down first."

"...alright." Xephos agreed, and holding the glowstone in one hand, he awkwardly made his way down the ladder, Lysander and then Honeydew following. The loamy dirt walls were soon replaced with a hard grey stone. "We are quite deep now." Lysander said. "We are among the stalactites." The ladder then ended and treading carefully, Xephos led the way into a higher ceilinged room carved of stone. By the light of the glowstone he made out a bookshelf on one side and a small table at the other, a sack next to it smelt of rotting meat (all present assumed that it contained the remains of the killed skylords), but at the head of the room there lay on a slab chiseled from the stone a long box, but Vitali was nowhere in sight.

"What _is_ this place?" Honeydew asked.

"Vitali's lair." Lysander answered as he walked to the box on the slab.

"What is that thing?" Xephos asked.

"Another body?" Honeydew offered.

"Not far off." Lysander said as he came to a stop at the head of what they now saw was a lidless coffin, and within lay Vitali, arms at his side and back straight.

"What the _fuck!"_ Honeydew yelled. "He's a vampire! That's why he's so pale!" They tried to late to hush him, for as they turned their backs to the coffin to scold him a deep voice echoed through the room.

"You should never wake a sleeping vampire."

They turned back to see Vitali standing bolt upright in his coffin towering over them. The three all leapt backwards and drew weapons, but Vitali only looked amused.

"Vitali!" Lysander cried in a rage. "You fiend!" Vitali openly laughed.

"So..." he said, stepping out of his coffin and off the bench onto the floor. "I trust that you know the truth." they manner in which he spoke made the sentence a statement, not a question. He appeared the same as he had when they saw him as they entered Skyhold, save that his eyes, once dark were now blood red, and shone in the dim light of the glowstones. When he spoke, two sharp fangs had replaced his canines, glinting menacingly.

"We have a good idea." Xephos answered coldly.

"Yes, we know Vitali. I have but one question before I end your...undeath." Lysander added. "Why?"

Vitali chuckled casually then spread his hands. "Power, Lysander. Power. The Dark Lord knows the true power of the Skyhold, and he offered me a grand prize to deliver it."

"There's some secret to this place." Honeydew murmured.

"No prize is worth the lives of your friends and family!" Lysander yelled.

"We shall see." Vitali's voice suddenly turned gruff again. "I think you've heard enough. You shall die here. Alone!"

"Not alone!" Lysander replied, glancing at Xephos and Honeydew. "We outnumber you."

"Your paltry weapons are no harm to me, not now." and at that Vitali lunged at them.

A strike so fast that Xephos didn't see it hit him sent him flying across the room into the bookshelf, dropping his glowstone. Honeydew had been quicker and tried to strike Vitali, but he had melted away from the sword blade and wrenched it from his grasp before sending him crashing into the table, shattering it as Honeydew too dropped his glowing pebble. Lysander he toyed with, dodging swings from his saber and striking Lysander in the chest or ribs before his mind could even process where Vitali had been a second before. Tiring of this, Vitali threw Lysander at the stone bench, his body knocking the coffin aside. The skylord lay across it, heavily winded and coughing blood.

"You see Lysander, this is what he would have offered you, but it is too late now." just as Vitali's cold white hands reached for Lysander's neck he spasmed, and looked down at the wooden stake protruding from his chest, unbloodied but lethal.

"Take that you mother-fucker." Honeydew said as he stepped away. He had recovered from being stunned after falling into the table, and as he saw Vitali over Lysander he'd reached for the nearest weapon, a sharp piece of broken wood from the table. He leapt to his feet and had rammed the stake home through the Vitali's back, forever creating a rumor on the only way to kill a vampire.

Vitali tottered and fell backwards onto the ground, mouth agape, and as he lay still, he slowly began to crumble into sand.

"Is everyone alright?" Honeydew asked, Xephos groaning as he stood, grasping the bookcase for support. "Lysander?"

"I am fine." he spat out a gobbet of blood. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, or at least I hope so." Honeydew replied.

They gathered around Vitali's remains, a pile of sand and his clothes. "Oohh..! Goggles!" Honeydew cried, stooping and picking up Vitali's Skylord goggles. He wasted no time in pulling them over his head, ignoring that they'd come off a homicidal vampire. "Look at me!" he said, pulling them over his eyes. "I'm a skylord!"

"Well, we are done here." Lysander said, ignoring him. "But what did he mean about the Skyhold's true power? And what is this..?" he bent over Vitali's remains, reaching into his tunic, and withdrawing a small black disk. He only stared for a moment, before looking back up. "I have seen this record before. We need to get to the control room." he pushed past them and made his way across the room and back up the ladder before Xephos and Honeydew had time to recover their dropped glowstones.

_Author's Notes:_

_This took a while because the family was away on holiday, but it only took a week to write and in spite of that it is probably one of my favorite chapters to write. I hope that you enjoyed it._

_Twitter: /OJvanderBeek_

_Forum Page: . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread-(o-j-van-der-beek)_


	30. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter30

Chapter 30: The Ghost in the Shell

The sky was dark as their mood when the three stepped out of Vitali's lair. It was nearing midnight but none of the company felt like sleeping after their ordeal underground. Honeydew shivered in at the touch of cold on his chest, bare save for smears of dirt and old blood.

"What do we do now?" Xephos asked, looking back at the darkness of the tunnel, that was somehow deeper than that of the moonless night that surrounded it.

"I will have to return here sometime to bury the bodies, but there is no time for that now." Lysander said. "We need to reach the control room, and that means that you will have to finish the final Trial."

"It's just like Baako said:" Honeydew gave a sniff. "complete the trials of the skylords and reach the control room. It's like he knew."

"That's likely why Vitali got rid of him." Lysander said. "But we have no time to spare. You must head to the final challenge. I shall be waiting for you, at the top off the middle spire when you are done." he gestured to the squat tower behind them at the top of the hill.

"So, we've still got another elemental gubbins to get." Honeydew sighed. "Where is it? I've totally lost direction of this place."

Lysander pointed them to the gateway left of where they stood around the apple tree. So Honeydew and Xephos parted ways with Lysander, them walking through the gateway to their final trial, and him starting up the hill to the tower.

After the darkness of the tunnels the torches set into the walls outside the trial half blinded Xephos and Honeydew. They took a few moments to recover their vision, and then they were able to read the sign that hung over the archway leading over the sky to the fourth quadrant of the Skyhold. The sign read _"The Trial of Life and Death"_, and above the chest sitting at the right wall the words _"Create life to preserve your own"_ were on another sign.

Xephos pulled the chest open, not sure what to expect, and was surprised with what he found.

"It's saplings and fertiliser." he stared into the chest, pulling out one of the four young trees, their bodies long and thin, roots bundled in old sacks. Next to them was a small bag nearly identical to the one that Honeydew carried and had scared Bruno with hours before.

"Ah!" Honeydew exclaimed, picking up the fertiliser bag, opening it to confirm it's contents.

"We know how to use these," Xephos picked up the other saplings, two in each hand.

"It's just like with Swampy Bogbeard." Honeydew agreed, recalling how they used his magical bonemeal to grow an enormous tree. "Although, if I'm honest, last time didn't go so well."

They crossed the walkway over the frozen sea far below, walking towards the Trial of Life and Death, a huge structure made of rough stone now covered in thick moss, it's summit crowned with a copse of dense trees. They came to the mouth of the Trail to find the opening covered in thick webs, the kind that a regular sized spider couldn't make.

"What do you think we'll find in here, friend?" Xephos asked sarcastically as Honeydew cut through the web with his sword grimly, stepping into the darkness beyond.

"I dunno, but maybe we can go around the outside this time?" he replied as Xephos followed him, looking wistfully at the door way as in the half darkness they both lit torches.

Xephos led the way down the dark mossy hallway, the air was wet and smelt damp. The passage was filled with the same large spider webs that they hacked through with bared weapons, when Xephos stopped at an alcove set into the wall. In it there sat the familiar shape of a mob spawner, lights flickering and the image of a spectral spider within.

"There's a creature spawner here," Xephos said to Honeydew as he followed after him. "but it seems to not be doing anything."

"Put a torch on it to stop it from spawning any creatures." Honeydew suggested. "We've got plenty to spare." he said as he pulled a third torch from his pack. During one of their nights he'd vandalised some sheets and wooden chairs to make some spare torches. He lit one of these and stuck it between the bars of the spawner.

"Let's go," Xephos said after it was done. The tunnel became more and more filled with cobwebs as they progressed, the strands of sticky fibre clinging to them if they touched the webs. "Just machete your way through here." Xephos said as their weapons busily swung at the webs, cutting a swathe through the nest until the tunnel and webs ended, opening into a massive cavern.

The size of the space must've taken up the entire dome of the Trial, for as Xephos and Honeydew stood on the edge of a precipice the light from their torches touched nothing in the blackness save the wall behind them, leaving a huge screen of dark before them.

"What's down there?" Xephos asked, looking over the edge. "It's all black."

"I can't see a goddamn thing!" Honeydew said loudly, his voice echoing off the walls.

"Where do we go?" Xephos asked, leaning forwards with his torch over the edge searching for anything that they might be supposed to leap to, yet he saw nothing.

"Stairs!" Honeydew suddenly said. "There are stairs here!" he stood over by the left side of ledge, where he was now looking down a narrow and precarious flight of stone stairs set into the wall.

"Fantastic." Xephos sighed as he followed Honeydew down the stairway, back pressed against the wall as they descended the narrow way. The path soon doubled back and led them, an orb of light in the dark, to the stair's landing.

They stood on a stone catwalk directly beneath the tunnel mouth above them, the broad path of the raised walkway stretched into the dark beyond them. They followed the path, constantly aware of the growing sound of movement in the shadows around them. The catwalk abruptly ended at a high wall, cutting off any further progression on foot.

"What on earth do we do here?" Xephos asked. "And how are we supposed to used these?" he shook the saplings that he held in each hand.

"What are these?" Honeydew suddenly said. Xephos looked over to where Honeydew was standing over a hole in the rock catwalk. Inside, the hole was filled with dirt, and ringed in stone bricks. "I saw another of these over that way." Honeydew said, pointing back towards the way they'd came.

"Do you think that they're for the saplings?" Xephos asked.

"Probably," Honeydew said, starting back down the catwalk. "First, let's see if there's four of these holes." Xephos followed him, and when they reached the stairs they had counted four hole for four saplings. He immediately turned and headed back to the furthest hole, planting the saplings firmly into the soil as he passed, Honeydew following, sack in hand.

"I hope this is the right thing to do." the dwarf said as Xephos stepped back from the final sapling.

Honeydew reached into the sack and pulled out a handful of the magical fertiliser. Standing far back, he threw the powder at the thin sapling. The plant gave a rumble as it shot from the ground, growing thicker and stronger as it became taller. When it finally was still, it had taken the form of a thick trunked tree with smooth light coloured bark, barren of leaves save at it's crown, where several strong boughs upheld a thick head of foliage, beyond the light of their torches.

"Well, that worked." Xephos said.

"I still don't understand what we're supposed to do with this." Honeydew commented as they moved to the next hole.

"My guess is that you have to grow all of them and climb between them from the ledge that we came from." Xephos said.

"You think that'll work?" Honeydew asked as he threw another handful of fertiliser.

"I can't think of another way to cross that wall."

"I _do_ hope we're doing the right thing here." Honeydew sighed anyway.

"I'll leave you to it and be above." Xephos said as he carried on when Honeydew stopped to grow the next tree. "Look out for mobs." he added over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs.

By the time he reached the top, the final tree was already grown, and Honeydew was close on his tail. The branches of the tree were half again as thick as a man's leg and sturdy, and so with great care the two of them stepped onto the first branch, resting on the lip of the ledge, and began making their way through the crown of the trees while taking great care not to set the leaves alight with their torches. With every step between the smooth branches they crossed the forbidding darkness below, a prospect made even more deterring when reaching from one tree to reach the other. After long minutes of climbing Xephos was the first to reach the top of the opposite ledge. The wall opposite it opened into another tunnel and when Honeydew joined him, they set forth into it, encountering more spider webs.

"Fortunately no spiders seem to be attacking us." Xephos said.

"Spiders, what do you mean by: "spiders"?" Honeydew said nervously.

"Well with all of the cobwebs in here I was kind of expecting to be just. . . overwhelmed by spiders." Honeydew had no answer to give in response to this.

It did not take them long to reach the end of the passage, where they stood in a small circular room, in the center of which was a another altar, a stone bowl sitting atop it. Wasting no time, Xephos hurried over to the bowl, where inside there lay a set of nine small balls of leaves, all different breeds, sizes, shapes and colours, each leaf overlapped like scales on a fish. Opening the bag that Lysander had given them, Xephos took one of the leaf orbs and placed it into the third compartment in the bag next to the fire ball and ice sphere.

"Leaves." Honeydew said. "I'm not surprised. But why call it the Trail of Life and Death instead of the Trial of Foliage?"

Xephos chuckled as they made their way to back through the tunnel, when he noticed something strange. The light from the doorway to the Trial on the other side of the huge room was gone. Even when they'd crossed the gap the light had still been there as a distant pin-prick, but now it was gone. But then it reappeared, and Xephos stopped. Something had been standing in front of it, and what ever it was was now moving. Something passed in front of it again. _Two somethings_ he thought. Then something again. _. . .Three somethings. . ._ It was then that Xephos noticed the first set of red eyes staring at them across the gap.

"What's wrong?" asked Honeydew, as he noticed Xephos had stopped.

"I can see spiders, Honeydew." he told his friend, pointing ahead. "We need to hurry up and cross before more of them arrive."

"Arrive? Where are they coming from?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say the ceiling." Xephos said as he jumped into the tree, recklessly making his way across.

"What." Honeydew said plainly. "I _knew_ this was too easy!" he growled. "I knew it!"

"Be careful with this crossing." Xephos said as he swung into the final tree. "I think this is supposed to be a final trap or something." there suddenly came a rustling from above Xephos in the treetop, and he looked up to see a huge spider perched in the branches preparing to drop onto him. Grasping the tree with one hand, Xephos fended the spider away from his face with his forearm, his hand clutching the torch. He pushed the arachnid away and as it scrabbled for purchase on the limbs Xephos sunk the torch head into the center of one of it's eyes. Screeching, the spider recoiled and fell out of the tree and tumbled towards the ground far below.

"Are you okay?!" Honeydew yelled as he leapt into Xephos' tree.

"We're in their domain now." Xephos replied. "There could be hundreds, we need to rush for the exit."

"Let's go then!" Honeydew answered, weaving through the branches towards the ledge.

A spider tried to accost him as Xephos followed, but Honeydew booted the creature off the edge and stamped another's head as Xephos came alongside him. Honeydew looked up, and saw all around them the twinkling of hundreds of red eyes staring down.

"Oh gods, they're coming from the ceiling, they're coming from everywhere!" Honeydew yelled as Xephos dragged him back down the passage, the footfalls of thousands of hairy legs followed their flight towards the morning light outside of the Trial. Looking back as they ran, Honeydew saw the tunnel lined with the red eyes of a hundred or more spiders in pursuit. When they burst from the darkness and onto the walkway they continued to run, despite being half blinded by the light of the newly risen sun, until they stood on the other side of the walkway from the Trial, while the swarm of spiders had stopped before the entrance to the sunlight.

"They were waiting for us!" Honeydew screamed in hysteria between gasps for air. "The little spidery bastards!"

"So," Xephos had his hands on his knees. "What now?"

"The center spire." Honeydew said. "That's what Lysander told us."

"Alright," he replied. "Let's see what this is all about."

"Come along!" Honeydew said as he led the way towards a stairway up the hill just outside of the opening from the walkway to the Trial of Life and Death. The two of them scaled the grey stone stairs and entered the squat tower at it's base. Inside four sets of railless stairways wound around the center of the room, where a huge glass circle was set into the floor, as the stairs spiraled up to the ceiling.

"What is this?" Honeydew said as they approached the stairs, starting towards the glass circle. "Oh gods! Look down at this!" he called as Xephos followed. The circle, twelve yards in diameter, was set into the floor above a huge hole in the floor of the Skyhold, of the same width, running right through the middle of the island, showing the sea of ice far below through the stalactites. "On second thought, don't look down." Honeydew mumbled as he stepped away from the glass. They made their way up the stairs with caution due to the lack of rails. They spiraled up through the ceiling and onto the tower's roof. Here the tower was above the walls, and exposed to the winds, and while it was now gentle and the sky was clear, the ice storm of days past had left it glazed in white ice, slick and difficult. In the center of the tower there stood a second, smaller tower, ladders scaling it's sides, and Lysander leaning against it.

"Lysander!" Honeydew yelled as he sighted him. "Hello!"

"You made it." Lysander said in his level tone. He sounded a little surprised.

"Yeah, we did. You could've warned us about those spiders though, you bastard!" Honeydew laughed.

"Do you have the items?" Lysander asked.

"We do!" Xephos said loudly, un-shouldering the cloth bag that contained the three balls.

"We've got fire. We've got snow. We've got tree leaves." Honeydew announced.

"Good." Lysander said, turning before Xephos could show him the contents of the bag. "Come with me." he walked to the small tower, starting up one of the ladders.

Xephos and Honeydew followed him, going hand over hand up the slick iron rungs set into the wall, clinging hard to every one, and slipping more than once. The tower was thick and drum shaped, only twenty-five yards or so high, yet it seemed to stretch out longer and longer until finally Xephos and Honeydew reached the top, where stood Lysander near the center of the roof, waiting for them. Beside him a circle of bronze was set into the ground. It was five yards across, with a small dome in the middle and three small indentations set into thirds around the dome. Xephos took a moment to realise that the indents were the exact size of the three balls that he held in his bag, and around each were markings cast in steel depicting flames, icicles and leaves.

"Wow." Honeydew said, looking impressed by the metal-work.

"You must use the items to open the seal." Lysander said dully.

"Right?" Honeydew turned to Xephos. "Go ahead." he said.

Xephos strode over to the seal and reached into the bag that contain the balls. First he placed the cold, perfect sphere of snow and ice into the groove surrounded by icicles. It fit perfectly, and as he stood straight it seemed to emanate more cold than before, freezing the cast icicles. He next placed the ball of leaves in the groove surrounded by leaves wrought from metal, and as he placed it the leaves touching the steel curled out to lie flat against those that were steel. Lastly he placed the flaming ball of red rock, and as he stepped away it's fire spread onto the metal ones around it, creating a tiny sun.

"What's going to happen?" asked Xephos as he stood back.

Lysander gestured for him to watch, as with a mighty groan the seal began to lift. The steel moaned and shrieked in the cold as the seal was pushed into the air. Beneath it a metal column lifted it from the center, and around it wound a spiral-staircase, spiraling out of the dark. The contraption came at last to a rest and all three stepped closer and stared down the stairway.

"You are now fully fledged Skylords." Lysander announced as they started at the device before them. "And -erm- I am supposed to give you these." he handed each of them a pair of goggles like his own, Honeydew taking a pair even though he already wore a pair of Vitali's.

"Wow." Honeydew said, looking back at the machine. "That's ridiculous! I haven't seen something like this in my life, well, ever! Even dwarves couldn't build this!"

"The Skyhold is much older than the dwarves." Lysander said as he started down the stairway, Xephos and Honeydew behind him. "It was found hundreds of years ago by explorers. No-one knows who built it, but that they lived a long time ago and were vastly wise. The first planes that we modeled our own on came from here. It held many secrets, and still does." he led them down into the dark through the winding stairway, when a strange green glow came from below, alien, yet strangely familiar. Lysander stopped. "I should tell you." he said. "What is down here might seem very strange. I would brace myself." They continued down the metal staircase, feet clanging quietly on the steps, when they came to the landing and found themselves in the control room, yet it reminded Xephos and Honeydew of something else.

On every wall there was a screen of glass, behind which a green light was flashing. There were strange machines all over the metal cased room, covered in small buttons with letters and numbers covering them. It reminded them exactly of the room through the Nether portal under Jock Fireblast's ship in Barbeque Bay

"This is weird." Xephos said.

"Yes, I suppose it seems very outlandish when you see it the first -or second- time, but-"

"No, that's not it, Lysander." Honeydew said. "This is familiar. It's like the room we found through the hell portal." Honeydew explained the incident to Lysander, who listened passively the entire way through.

"It is possible that the facility that you found yourself in through the portal was created by the same men who built Skyhold." Lysander said. "We know nothing of them, but that when they vanished their machines remained. It's not an impossibility." he turned away from them to the flickering screens. "But we must remember why we are here." Lysander said as he produced the small black disk.

Xephos and Honeydew watched in fascination while Lysander, instead of placing the disk on a spindle, slid it into a slot beside the glowing screen.

"This place has not been used in a long time." Lysander said as he wiped a layer of dust from the screen before him.

"It is a bit dusty." Honeydew commented.

The screen suddenly lit up as a string of words appeared on the screen, Lysander reading them as they blinked into life, the light shining onto his lined face.

"Hmm. . . It appears that this disc that Vitali had gives one access to the -My word!" he suddenly gasped. "This disk gives whoever has it access to the Skyhold's propulsion system. The Skyhold _has_ a propulsion system!?" he yelled. "It can move?"

This news took Xephos and Honeydew aback too, the mere fact that a stronghold like the Skyhold could float in the air made it formidable, yet if it could move, it would be unstoppable.

"If Vitali had this disk, he must've been preparing to give it to Israphel." Xephos said.

"So _this _is the power of the Skyhold. We were just it bloody time, I'd say." Honeydew breathed. "This is the thing that Israphel wanted to use."

"I must thank you two." Lysander said. "If the Skyhold were to be taken by Israphel, it would become his dread fortress."

"This is nuts." Xephos said. "We have to find out where he is."

"I must stay here," Lysander spoke. "to safeguard this place and rebuild the Skylords."

"Alright, Lysander. That's understandable." Xephos answered.

"I salute you, Lysander." Honeydew added.

"But, there is a problem." Xephos said. "Where's the map fragment? We were told that one would be found among the lords of the sky by Swampy Bogbeard. Where is it?"

"Alas," Lysander sighed. "There is no fragment here. Just ancient machinery."

Beside Honeydew, a screen suddenly lit up brilliantly, it's green light filling the room.

"However, should you need a plane, I could provide you one for you next flight to Stoneholm." Lysander continued as Honeydew glanced over at the screen.

With gloved hand, Honeydew wiped the dust away from the screen, increasing the light.

"Why is it doing that?" Xephos asked, nodding at the screen where Honeydew stood.

"Doing what?" Lysander asked, looking at Honeydew, perplexed as the dwarf stared at the screen.

"The glass-light thingy." Xephos answered.

"They're all off except for this one." Lysander gestured at the device beside him where he'd placed the disk.

"What?" Xephos asked as he looked at Honeydew, still staring at the bright screen. "It's clearly-"

"Oh, what the fuck." Honeydew suddenly spoke. "Xephos, look at this."

Xephos walked across to the screen, where the green tinted image of the half frozen turtle-structure they'd seen outside the Skyhold slowly rotated on-screen. Above, words were gently flashing in time, words that read: _Heroes, it's turtles all the way down._

"What are you two looking at!?" Lysander barked, who could not see anything.

"Woah. . ." Xephos gasped.

"What is this?" Honeydew asked. "Is it a clue?"

"There's nothing on the screen!" Lysander yelled, annoyed now, and believing the two were mocking him.

"I think it is a clue." Xephos agreed with his friend.

"Turtles, turtles." Honeydew said, when suddenly the screen winked off. "We. . . saw a turtle." he scratched his beard.

"The turtle in the ice outside." Xephos agreed. "Does that mean. . ?"

"We must go to the turtle, Xephos." Honeydew agreed. "Lysander, we have to go now, but we'll be back!" the dwarf yelled as he and Xephos ran up the spiral staircase, leaving Lysander looking confused at the bottom.

"Where are you going!?" he yelled after them. "You two are quite barmy indeed." he mumbled. "If they're this world's only hope we might need a miracle to save us." he sighed.

"I don't understand it. Did someone leave a message for us?" Honeydew said as they jumped off of the ladder and quickly made their way for the stairs.

"It doesn't matter." Xephos answered. "There's no time to lose. We have to get the fragment."

"How do we know that it's there?" Honeydew asked as they started down the stairs, the sun now past early morning. "And who made that thing, why could only we see it?"

"Maybe it was Verigan?" Xephos realised. "Remember when we had that vision because we had touched the map? Maybe it was like that."

Honeydew recalled the strange vision of a possible future that they'd shared on Isabel's ship; the Black Pimple. They reached the bottom of the stairs, and stopped.

"Which way was the turtle?" asked Xephos. "Let's find it. I remember being able to see it really closely from the Ice Trial, and that's over here." he started for the opening on the southern side of the tower, where a stairway led down to the walkway to the Trail of Ice. "How will we get down, though?" he said, pausing halfway down the stairs.

"We still have the buckets!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Remember the Trial of Fire? The enchanted buckets!"

"Oh right!" Xephos said as he remembered the small bucket in his pack.

"A cunning plan." Honeydew nodded.

They hurried to the walkway and crossed it briskly, coming to the Trial of Ice, where from the entrance to the ice wall surrounding it they could see the immense form of the frozen turtle below.

"What do you think that we have to do once we reach it?" Xephos asked.

"I dunno, man." Honeydew said as he took off his pack and searched through it to find the small bucket. He put his pack back on and unstoppered the top of the ornate pail, and stepped towards the edge of the high walkway.

"Careful," Xephos warned. "It has to be placed on something solid if I remember."

Honeydew upended the bucket onto the edge of the sandstone bridge, the colourless blob of water slapping against the stone before a slow noodle of water began to sluggishly drop over the edge towards the ice far below.

"Ta daa." Honeydew said, setting the bucket back inside his bag. "Fancy a swim?" he asked.

"Not terribly in this cold," Xephos said as he took off his pack. "Throw our packs down first." he said as he dropped his into the stream of water. Honeydew followed suit and they watched with some interest and trepidation as the large rucksacks slowly descended into with the water, it's descent equally as slow.

"Okay. Down _we_ go." Xephos swallowed.

He got on his hands and knees over the edge, the bottom half of his torso already wet in the unpleasantly cool water. "Augh, gods." he said, looking up at Honeydew. "Remember that you ca stick your head out of the side to breath." he said. "I'll see you at the bottom." he remarked before letting go and being swallowed up by the current.

The water immediately soaked through his clothes and into his skin, it's cold touch chilling him through. He fought to keep himself upright, fanning with his arms to steady himself, his fingertips emerging from the stream of water into the cold air. He looked up and saw Honeydew above him, performing a similar motion. As he fought for breath, Xephos awkwardly angled his head out of the column of water, careful to not put too much of his weight forwards and fall out of the waterfall. The air on his face was colder than the water, and he felt himself getting brain-freeze while they finished their descent. He stepped out of the water and over the two packs as Honeydew followed after him. The water spread around the waterfall in a circle of seven meters, before it shallowed out, regardless of how much water the bucket was producing.

"It's weird how it does that." Xephos said as he wrung out his shirt on the slick water covered ice. "How no matter how much water's coming down it always stops spreading after a while."

"I'd guess it's so that it doesn't just keep infinitely spreading and flood the world." Honeydew shivered. "Shit, it's cold." he rubbed himself with his hands. "We didn't think this through."

Xephos pulled his shirt back on and they turned back towards the huge turtle, beaked mouth facing them two hundred yard away. He tried to pull his pack on, but it had become so waterlogged in the waterfall that it was too heavy. He and Honeydew then opted that they would empty their bags onto the hard sea ice and let the contents dry in the warm sun, which as it rose was beginning to melt the ice cladding the outside of Skyhold, sending a rain of meltwater from it's heights, creating a rainbow. Taking with them only their weapons, and the two other map fragments they began to trek across the ice to the huge turtle. As they approached it became more and more mystifying to them, until they stood at the edge of it's shell.

"It's metal." Honeydew gasped. "The entire thing is made of metal."

He was, of course as a dwarf is in such matters, correct. The huge reptile, trapped in the ice was constructed entirely of metal, the coppery head and flippers made from bronze and brass, and the shell, due to exposure to seawater was so covered in verdigris that it appeared to be green. Of the eyes, both were made of thick black glass, but the left was so cracked it appeared as white.

"It's made of metal? But it's huge!" Xephos said. "It must be nearly a hundred yards long. What's it for?"

"I think that it's a ship." Honeydew said as he walked towards the head, striding for the beak. "And I think I found a way in." Xephos followed him as he stood beside a rend in the bottom jaw, large enough for them to get through with ease.

"A ship?" Xephos asked. "Who would make a ship made to look like a turtle?"

"Turtles are good swimmers."

"But made from metal?" Xephos said as he kicked the huge, shield-sized riveted scales on the carapace to his left. Honeydew turned and shimmied into the beak, his footfalls echoing through the vast interior. "Why are we here anyway?" Xephos said as he followed Honeydew into the pitch darkness. "It's a good thing I've still got the glowstone." he said as he fished the two from his pockets and handed one to Honeydew.

"This is a bit weird." Honeydew commented as the room lit up. The inside of the mouth was hollow, the metal under their feet and above their heads was smooth and well riveted, and the only thing in the room other than more panels was a huge iron door located at the back of the mouth, where the throat was. Their steps echoing off the walls, they walked to the door, heavy and steel. On it there was a wheel, located in the center, that gave way after Honeydew nearly strained himself by pulling. It opened into a small room with another identical door, this one giving way more easily. The door opened to a wide hallway stretching in either direction, curving around to follow the bend of shell. The entire structure was slightly canted to the left, where a pool of seawater sat in the bend, ice floating around it in tiny bergs.

"Oh, this is nuts." Xephos breathed, mist forming before him. Since the inside of the turtle was hidden from the sun, it was still cold as the night inside, and icicles as big as his arm clung to the side of the walls. "By Jeb, it's cold though. We need to find whatever we're looking for and get the hell out before we freeze."

"What's down here?" asked Honeydew, who started along the right corridor, treading carefully up the gentle slope, glazed in some places with ice.

"Is this the way to go?" Xephos asked as he followed. "Try not to slip, or you'll take me out with you."

Honeydew reached the apex of the slant first. They had not seen any doors in the walls thus far, and nor did they on their way down, where they mainly concentrated on not slipping on the icy grating. Xephos looked up as he held himself still for a moment on the wall, and saw ahead, at what he could tell was the opposite side of the ring hallway from the entrance, several of the same glowing screens they'd seen in the control room of Skyhold. They were set into an enclave, and alongside them a menagerie of different contraptions, and as Honeydew and Xephos made their was quickly towards it, bitterly cold now, they saw that the screens were indeed of the same design as those in Skyhold.

"What's all of this stuff?" Xephos said, when he turned and saw that behind them there was another door, this one half open, and a large room lying behind it.

"I have no idea." Honeydew answered.

Xephos stepped halfway through the tilted doorway.

"You look through those devices and see if you can find anything, I'll check in here." he said as he stepped the rest of the way into the room. It seemed, if Honeydew's theory of the turtle being a ship was true, to be the helm. At the end furthest from Xephos, on counters stood more glowing screens and ting buttons, and what appeared to be a steering wheel. Xephos didn't have the chance to look around any further, for there suddenly came a loud gasp from behind him.

"M-map!" Honeydew yelled after a moment. "Map!"

Xephos turned and ran back into the doorway, where Honeydew faced him, holding the third fragment of Karpath's map triumphantly.

"How did you get it?!" Xephos asked as he climbed through.

"I was just bangin' around with these machines and suddenly this tube here popped out of the screen thing." he pointed to a metal cylinder that was poking out from behind one of the screens, which had folded down. The top had come off of it, revealing that it was hollow. "The cap just popped off and there it was!" Honeydew laughed.

"Finally!" Xephos added. "Now there's just one missing." the brief euphoria suddenly wore off, and the cold of the ship settled back in. "Honeydew, let's get the hell out of here." he turned and began to make his way back around the hallway.

They emerged from the turtle into the sun's warmth, which they basked in for a second, looking up at the underside of Skyhold, it's four sectors about the fifth huge platform. From below the stalactites bristled from each platform, wet from melting ice in the noon day sun. They admired the view in awe for a moment, before Honeydew asked an important question.

"Xephos, how are we going to get back up?"

Xephos, suddenly realising their poor planning, went white.

"Well, shit." he swore. He thought for a moment. "We might just have to go get our stuff and trek across the ice back to the mainland, then walk to Stoneholm. How much of Isabel's supplies do we have left?"

Honeydew breathed out. "Not that much."

"Well, let's go get our stuff anyway. Hopefully it will have dried by now."

They crossed the ice over to the base of the waterfall, where their equipment had for the most part dried in the sunlight, some of it still remaining damp. Stuffing what they deemed necessary into their packs, they donned them and began to make south, heading under the Skyhold towards the mainland. Yet just as they started, Xephos saw something dangling from the underside of the Skyhold. They peered over to below the outer ring wall, where a wooden platform was descending on thick ropes. They couldn't make out what was aboard it, other than there was something. Starting into a run they began to close the five hundred yards between them and the platform, when they saw that some of the cargo was already on the ground, likely from and earlier trip.

"It's Lysander!" Xephos cried as he saw that standing on the platform was the skylord. They stood to the side as the wooden platform, one of the ones that they'd crossed to reach Nubescu, thumped onto the ice beside them.

"Ah, Heroes!" Lysander said. as he stepped off. "You found what you were looking for?"

"We've found the map fragment!" Xephos replied. "It was in that big turtle." he pointed over to the ship. "Did you know that it's a ship of some kind? Inside it looks the same as the control room in Skyhold."

Lysander looked over at the turtle with a thoughtful expression, then turned back to them. "I am glad," he said. "But it seems that in our haste, i wasn't able to efficiently resupply you. Come." he gestured them over to a crate beside a large bulk covered in canvas, exactly the same as the one on the ice beside it.

Lysander opened the crate a lifted out a lightweight set of steel and leather greaves and a matching vest. Xephos, who'd been lacking armor and sorely missed it, took these and donned them. From the other set of armor Honeydew only took a peculiar chest-piece. It resembled an upside-down triangle with a large "S" adorning it. He hooked the steel from his baldrics, where it only covered him from breast to mid abdomen.

"A strange choice." Lysander said. "It's more a traditional piece, the "S" stands for "Skylor-"

"Super-dwarf!" Honeydew critiqued, looking proudly at his new armor. "But what are these things?" he walked over to one of the canvas covered objects.

"Well," Lysander said. "I did promise you planes." he stepped over to one and undid some ties before pulling the canvas off, unveiling an aeroplane identical to the one that Honeydew had traveled in, gaudy paint and all.

They threw the covers off of the second planes, another garish spectacle, but a plane was a plane. They were just resupplying their packs with food from a second crate, when Xephos realised just where they stood. He looked up above to the dangling platforms and spotted the one where Um Bongo had fallen from. Xephos followed the drop below it to the ice, where in the shadow of the Skyhold he saw a dark shape on the ice.

"Holy shit." he said, walking slowly over towards it.

"What is it?" Honeydew asked.

"This was where Um Bongo fell."

"Oh fuck." Honeydew ran over to him, but as they stood over the dark shape, it became apparent that it wasn't a body. Instead they stood at the foot of a three-by-three yard hole in the ice, dark water swirling below it.

"What's wrong?" asked Lysander, coming up from behind.

Xephos looked back up at the platforms, verifying they stood in the right place.

"This is where Um Bongo fell from." he answered, pointing above, tracing the route to the hole. "It couldn't have been anywhere else, otherwise there'd be a body."

"So where is the body, did it drift away under the ice?" Honeydew asked. "Is - is it possible to survive a fall like that?"

"Not a chance." Lysander said as he turned back towards the planes, which he was now unfolding the wings from.

It took they a few more somber minutes to prepare the planes, as well as a quick revision on flight, with more focus on the landing, before Lysander filled them with the special fuel, and they were ready to depart. Both planes faced north, parallel to each other on the ice, an endless runway.

"Where is it that we are going?" Xephos asked as he sidled up to his enormous multi-coloured checkered machine.

"Xephos, we're going to save the world." Honeydew said dramatically. "Geographically, I've got no bloody clue." he added after a pause.

"You must head directly south, to the mountains, where you'll find Stoneholm." Lysander answered.

"Directly south?" Xephos said, turning and looking behind the plane, where in the distance he saw land rising from the frozen sea.

"Make sure you've got your flying goggles on!" Honeydew yelled, pulling the ones he looted from Vitali over his eyes while he vaulted into his plane, painted with pink and white flowers.

"Alright." Xephos climbed into his own plane. "Farewell Lysander!" he called.

"Farewell Lysander!" Honeydew echoed. "Look after Skyhold, make sure that no vampires get in!"

"Farewell heroes!" Lysander replied as the two started up their plane's engines.

Slowly they began to move forwards, their speed increasing as they traveled.

"Bye Lysander!" they cried as the wind whipped past. They pulled back on the flight lever, and slowly their planes lifted as one into the the cold air. Carving wide, they turned their planes about, pulling up as they did, until they flew right over top of Skyhold, beholding it's view unimpeded by the weather. Speed carried them over the stronghold in the sky, and soon they began to fly over the white ocean, towards the distant shore, where a range of mountains could be seen growing ever closer. As they flew, side by side, wind in their hair, the two heroes became aware that they only needed one more map fragment, and with it they would find an end to their journey.

End of Act 3


	31. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 3: Chapter31

Chapter 31: Stoneholm

On cold winds blown from the great ice sea two aeroplanes soared over the land below, hilly and blanketed in snow, the trees twisted by cold. They flew onward for hours, the sun passing it's zenith while they danced between the clouds, the hills growing into mountains, until as the sun began to dip they met the side of a huge range of high peaks, grey and humorless. They followed the mountains west, searching the slopes for what they sought: Stoneholm, the capitol of the dwarves of the South.

Xephos looked through his goggles, strapped tightly to his forehead, at the sun, it's body just grazed the top of a peak as they flew past it. He glanced back over to Honeydew, flying right of him, at a lower level. He began to grow worried, if they did not find the city soon, then night would fall, and if they hadn't landed by then, they risked a crash. Onwards they flew as evening grew, the imposing faces of the mountains to their left darkening as it did. Xephos began to pull away from the mountainside with his aeroplane, so he might pull alongside Honeydew and discuss a landing. Yet as he did so he noticed a glow ahead in the mountainside.

Here the range dipped, and below the lowered peaks a plateau stretched out on the slopes. From the cliffs above the plateau an orange light glowed from two thin gouts of lava pouring from the rock. Intrigued and hopeful, the two flew closer in their planes, swooping over the plateau and past the face that they now saw wasn't a cliff, but the exquisitley carved stonework surrounding a huge gateway in the mountainside. A stone stairway led from the grassy plateau up to the base of the gateway, which stood over twenty yards tall, just short of the dipping peaks. From the cliff there sprouted many parapeted balconies, and two aqueducts of stone, channeling lava out and dropped it through the air to land in great pools far below on the plateau at the base of the stairway.

They saw all of this as they passed, and they immediately turned back around as soon as they left it behind, for this was undoubtably the entrance to Stoneholm. Angling their planes about, both landed carefully on the smooth plateau of long green grass as night dawned over the range, the iron doors of the Dwarves of the South standing immovable above them.

"There we are!" Xephos said. "A perfect landing."

"Hello, friend!" Honeydew yelled as he swung himself out of his plane.

Xephos exited his own and got out to meet his friend, who was dusting himself off. The tall dwarf took off his goggles and left them to dangle around his neck. "Hey, not too bad, was it?" he asked as he offered Honeydew a handful of dried meat strips, a few of which he was already eating himself. The dwarf took them hungrily.

"Welcome to Stoneholm, I guess." Honeydew said between bites. "I'm surprised they haven't sent any guards down to see what was going on with the planes." he swallowed. "Do you like it though? I think it looks great. These are my people we're going to see."

"It looks lovely," Xephos commented as he stared up at the heavy gates. Upon them a huge seal was placed, the sigil of Stoneholm, a hawk on a heater shield. "it looks like a nice sort of place. Shall we go in?" he asked.

The long silky grass swept around their feet as the two pressed up the plateau towards the stairway. As they approached, they came onto a broad stone road, reaching from the foot of the stairs and through the plateau, where it eventually made it's snaking way back down the mountain and into the distance. They stuck to the road, coming to the foot of the wide and high stairway, where they began a long ascent.

"I wonder if Spacker is here?" Honeydew wondered.

"He said he would be." Xephos replied. "I wonder how he'll take it when we tell him about Um Bongo?"

"Oh gods."

Soon they began to hear something from the far off top landing. As they quickened their pace, they heard that two voices were conversing, and as they drew nearer, they seemed to be arguing. Soon one of the voices became familiar, and they then recognised the deep slurred speech of Spacker LeChuck above them. They sped to a run.

". . .But ye've got t' yet me in, I'm a dwarf!" they heard Spacker yell angrily.

"I told you already. No-one enters, no-one leaves." replied the other voice, a deep accented voice of another dwarf.

"Why?" Spacker growled.

"Rotting Plague, that' why." the other dwarf replied. "Stoneholm is sealed."

Xephos and Honeydew reached the wide landing, where they saw the short, green tinged form of Spacker facing the door, where a hatch was hanging open in the iron face of the door, the face of a dwarf stared through, gold rings hanging from his brown-orange beard. As they stepped onto the doorstep, he turned to glance at them, his eyes small and greedy, surveying them.

"Plague?" Spacker spoke. ". . .But-"

"You've heard me, now leave!" the hatch closer with a clang, and Spacker, still unaware that he had company, hammered on the door.

"Kormag!" he yelled. "Open the door, Darkforge! What you're saying doesn't make sense, blast it!"

"Well done, Spacker." Xephos said with exasperation. The undead dwarf turned to face them, looking as haggard as ever, his beard shaggy, eyes red, skink a clammy green, and the gap in his belly hidden by a binding of heavy fabric.

"It's not his fault," Honeydew said. "There's a rotting plague. We arrived too late."

"Heroes," Spacker said blankly. "Ye made it. That means that you have the map from the skylords." he stated.

"Yes." Xephos said, looking at the huge gates with apprehension. "We hear there's a plague though."

"Well that's the thing," Spacker said. "I've been hammering on the doors for a whole day and what you just saw were the only words that I've heard from inside, and Kormag, the Guard Captain, is not as I remember him." he hacked out a cough. "The doors are sealed, an' the place stinks of death!" he spat.

"It does?" Xephos asked quietly.

"A bit like you then, Spacker." Honeydew jeered.

"But it's not from this . . . plague. It is suspicious." Spacker said, ignoring or not hearing them.

"So, it's not an ordinary run of the mill plague. It's a suspicious and strange plague?" Honeydew asked.

Spacker looked at him, as one does at one stuck with incredible stupidity.

"We dwarves are immune to plague," he explained, as though it was blatantly obvious. "it's the rock in our blood. Did no-one ever tell ye this?" he added after there was no sign of recognition from Honeydew. "Did ye never pay attention in your lessons?"

Honeydew looked awkwardly at the ground. "I didn't go to many lessons other than fighting, building and mining." he explained.

Spacker looked at him exasperatedly.

"This is a basic thing to know, a beardless child would've known!" he yelled. Honeydew, in spite of towering over the smaller dwarf, allowed the scolding to go ahead.

"Well, I've never had a plague, so I suppose this must be true." Honeydew replied.

Spacker sighed loudly.

"The clues to the final map piece must lie within the city, we must enter. I know of a back way in, through the back." he said.

"Well that's no good, I don't want to go in if there's a plague!" Xephos answered. "You two might be immune to plague, but I'm human."

"There can't be a plague," Spacker said slowly in suppressed annoyance. "'cause all of the dwarves would be immune. It's some kind of poor lie to keep folks out." he looked up above the huge door, to where either side of it's peak two balconies jutted from the rock face below the top of the range above them. "Follow me." he said, turning around and walking to the side of the doors, where a small doorway was carved into the mountainface. Spacker walked through in unimpeded, but Xephos and Honeydew had to duck below the low stoop, intended for dwarves. They entered a small room with a ceiling that reached high into the mountain, reaching the balcony right of the door. Around the four square walls a set of stairs spiraled upwards, carved from the same gunmetal rock of the mountain.

"I'm not sold on this whole plague deal." Xephos groaned as they climbed up the stairs.

"Well, _I'll _be okay. . ." Honeydew replied. "Just put a damp hankerchief over your mouth." he suggested.

After climbing the stairs outside of the gateway, mounting these made their legs, stiff from hours of flight, ache like freezing iron.

"Where are we going?" Xephos asked Spacker as he followed him.

The dwarf, being shorter, had to take the stairs more slowly than the other two, and as such was holding them back. He did not give any reply other than: "I know a way in, through the back."

Eventually they stepped out of the dark stairway onto the high stone balcony, they stared out over the glade below the mountain, thick with tundra. A cold wind blew their hair as it ran past the mountains from the east, carrying the bite of the ice that covered the land that way.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Honeydew, looking through the high merlons. To their right another balcony stood on the far side of the great door below them, and behind them was nought but the steep jagged slope of the mountain range.

"Up there." Spacker said, pointing behind them, up the slope of rock. "We must climb to the other side of the mountain." he growled.

Xephos and Honeydew turned to look up the mountain, the rock, steep and jagged offered many handholds, and the climb was hardly over twenty yards, yet the wind here was harder and colder, and the consequences of a fall meant tumbling over the edge, where a thirty yard drop waited for them.

"Oh gods, is there another way?" Xephos asked. "I wouldn't want to fall from this height."

"No other way." Spacker answered. "Over the peak lies a skylight where we can crash through." He stood where the parapet joined the mountainside, raising a foot into a merlon and pulling himself onto the rock, beginning the climb.

"For fuck's sake, and here I was hoping this last map would be easy." Honeydew sighed, stepping up to follow Spacker. Xephos came after, watching Honeydew's placement of feet and hands. The rock here was strong, and not once did did any hold give way, and as they climbed, though trying to press into any shelter, the cold wind would howl at them, trying to pull them off. Looking back, Xephos saw the vale far below, and pressed himself back into the rock, following Honeydew cautiously.

With hands raw, they eventually pulled themselves over the scree slope of the mountain, where below them there lay a cratered dip in the mountaintop before it dropped back down into a sharp decent. Here the sun was yet to set, and the gradient of the stone in the summit's dip was more gentle, and so they made their way across the dip, where Spacker led them between shards of rock to the other side of the mountain. Here he pointed down the slope to where, nestled at the foot of a rocky knoll there sat a carved stone platform, a pane of thick glass set in the center.

"Down there, ye' see?" Spacker said.

"Ah, that must be the skylight?" Xephos asked, leaning forwards and nearly slipping on a pile of loose shingle.

"Watch yer step, lad." Spacker warned as he stepped from rock to rock down the face. They followed him and soon were standing next to the knoll, where opposite it and set into a cave in the mountainside a huge window the size of one in a cathedral sat. Inside in they saw a stairway running below them, leading up to the enormous iron doors above, and descending into the earth below.

"How do we get in, Spacker? What do you suggest?" Xephos asked the undead dwarf.

Spacker walked over to the side of the window and skylight to the mountainside. He bent over and hefted up a anglular rock the size of a loaf of bread.

"Wait," Xephos said as the dwarf trotted over to the huge window. "Spacker I don't think that's a good idea-!" Spacker paid him no mind and with a heave threw the rock threw the huge window. It shattered with a magnificent crashing sound, the shards of glass tinkling onto the stairs below as the rock clunked noisily down them, echoing as it traveled. Honeydew gave a cry of approval at the sight of this, while all that Xephos could think of was the potentially hundreds of dwarves that had been alerted to their presence. Yet there came no cries of angry voices, nor hurried footfalls. The only sound the broke the continuing silence was that of Spacker grimly drawing his cleaver and hacking away the last pieces of glass around the hole, enlarging it so they may pass through.

"What now, though?" asked Xephos, looking through the gap. "It's a good ten yard drop onto the stairs."

"I have a rope." Spacker said, as he reached into his pack and withdrew a thick hempen rope. He turned and walked towards the knoll, right over the glass skylight. Unwinding the rope, he walked about the small stony rise and tied the rope off once he came back around, making sure that it was secured around the rock. Taking the other end of the rope, he walked over to the edge of the window, and after kicking the last shards of glass out of the frame, to avoid cutting the rope, he tossed it over the edge. The coil was short of the ground by four yards, but at least now the fall was not fatal.

"We should hurry up," Xephos suggested. "People will be coming after that noise."

"Why haven't they come already?" Honeydew asked as Xephos began to climb down the rope.

As soon as he was able to see down the stairway, Xephos watched it like a hawk as he lowered himself down the rope, trying to make out any movement. None came, and yet at the foot of them he could see a light from a stone doorway, and that did not put him to rest. He reached the bottom of the rope, and hanging from it as he swung he dropped onto the stairs, landing roughly, and sliding down a few stairs. The others followed him down, where he waited with bow drawn and arrows ready. Together they started down the stairs with only a few extra bruises, heading cautiously for the light. They reached it, where from within they heard the sound of snoring. Looking within, they saw the dwarf from the gate, Kormag Darkforge, with his head resting on his arms while he leaned on a stone table, snoring, with a tankard resting across from him.

"He always was one for falling into his cups." Spacker growled. "Now you see why we weren't heard. Let's go." he added as the stairs doubled back. They followed these deeper into the earth, their path lit by streams of lava running down the stone bannisters.

"How deep does this go?" Xephos asked as the stairway doubled back again.

"Not far, now." Spacker said, pushing ahead. He led them to the foot of the stairway, where it doubled back once more, but this time there were no more stairs, but a large hallway, wide, tall and ornate with stone pillars lining the sides. "This way lads." he added, leading the way down the corridor, lit with more runnels of lava.

The hallway ended with a short flight of stairs that led up into a large hall, high ceilinged, long and pillared with dark stone. Upon the back wall the likeness of a hawk had been cut into a pane of rock, a sheet of lava falling behind it. Yet the center of the room was what drew their attention. Set on a high dais there sat a huge anvil, dark as night and hard as bedrock. In spite of the size of the hall there was no sign of any life, nothing moved, and no-body was to be seen.

"Where is everyone?" Xephos asked as they walked into the great hall, voice and footsteps echoing.

"I don't know. It's not right though. What's happened here?" Spacker asked aloud.

Suddenly there came a shuffling from the great anvil, and from behind it there stepped a dwarf.

"Uncle Spacker?" he asked. "Is that you?" he had the height and squeak in his voice of a dwarf that had yet to reach his hundredth year, and was short, even by dwarven standards, half the height of Honeydew. His beard was brown and short, his body lean and healthy.

"Well this dwarf looks fine, so much for a plague." Xephos sighed thankfully.

"Rory!" Spacker exclaimed, hurrying over to his nephew. "It is good to see you." he said, clasping Rory's shoulder.

"You look as awful as ever, Spacker, but quick, come!" he looked as if he had just remembered something. "I must hide you!" he hissed. He rushed over to the left side of the hall, calling for them to follow. Rory led them through a high doorway in the wall, through a tunnel and out into an enormous cavern. This cave, so large that it had it's own cliffs and magma-falls was filled with buildings, chiefly, homes and workplaces for the dwarves. The buildings were either carved right into the the cave walls, or built from the same stone that surrounded it. "Come quickly!" Rory hissed to regain their attention. He led them from the entrance down a wide avenue and into a square, but still they saw no dwarves.

"Boy, what are you so afraid of?" Spacker asked as Rory led them over a broad bridge spanning a canal of magma that ran through the town square. "Where is everyone?"

"We cannot talk here!" Rory answered, voice growing higher in fear. "We might be too late already!" He raced across the other side of the square with the other three in tow, leading them to a tall two-story building that overlooked the square.

"In here!" Rory, whispered as he held the door open for them. The sign hanging above door read: _"Magmabloom Armoury"_. Spacker entered with ease, but Xephos and Honeydew, due to their uncatered height, had to duck, and as the door slammed shut behind them, they stood to find themselves in a large smithy, weapons hanging from the wall, a counter by one of the walls, and a door which presumably led to the forge. Xephos and Honeydew had to slump to avoid hitting the roof with their heads as Spacker coughed roughly a few times.

"Rory, what in Notch's name is going on here?" he gasped.

"You and your friend's have come at bad time." Rory replied.

"What's going on?" came a worried voice, which came from the door to the forge. In it stood a young dwarf woman, remarkably svelt for a dwarf, yet still strong. Her golden hair was tied in a braid, and short fair beard well kept. She was dressed in the fashion of most dwarves, which is to say, much was bare, yet over everything she wore a blacksmith's apron, and she too carried a hammer, as though ready to repel invaders. "Rory, who are these strangers? One of them's a human!"

"I'll never understand how dwarves never mistake you for a human." Xephos whispered to Honeydew.

"Moira, love, please be calm. They're friends. . .I think." Rory pleaded, then turned to Spacker. "Uncle," he said lowly. "I don't know how you got here, but Stoneholm has fallen."

"Fallen?" Spacker looked taken aback. "How is this possible!?" he asked aggressively.

"I shall tell you about it upstairs." Rory wrung his hands. "There is much to say, and I wouldn't want to be seen as a bad host."

Rory turned and with Moira led them up a short flight of stairs to a room that seemed to be the two's living area, spacious and lit by multiple candles with two large windows looked out over the town square.

"Now, explain what is going on here, Rory." Spacker said quietly. "Kormag said something of a plague."

"There is no plague. But Stoneholm has fallen." Rory answered.

"How? Rory, how?" Spacker asked again.

"It's King Finbar. He died, but then he returned from the dead. He said that he'd been returned by Notch's own hand, meaning he had a divine right to rule. Everyone believed him, but then he started to order strange things. He initiated a curfew, and began drafting young dwarves into his personal guard, and he set me, as the best mason in the city, to a task: carving beams of obsidian. But then he started cutting off trade, and we began running out of food. He said that if we believed in his divine power we would work, and eventually be saved from death forever. We believed him, but then his curfews became more strict, and anybody caught outside during it would be killed. The dwarves that were taken away for the guard have not been seen again, but at night we hear them patrolling the streets. Spacker, they are not dwarves anymore. He has somehow turned them into the undead. I have been granted exemption from the draft and curfew because the King says that my work is top priority. He's had me carving obsidian day and night, but I don't know why."

"What could be the meaning off all of this?" Spacker muttered.

"He said that no-one is to leave the city, and no-one is to enter, that's why I brought you here." Rory added.

"Rory!" Moira hissed, taking him aside. "They cannot stay here, if they are found, we will be killed too!"

"I- I can't just leave them to be taken away." Rory said.

Suddenly Honeydew spoke up from the window.

"If there's a curfew then what are _they_ doing outside?" he asked.

Rory suddenly looked fearful, and after stepping over to the window he quickly turned back to Moira.

"It's Finbar and his routine." he said quietly, fear in his voice.

"That's him?" Xephos looked out into the town square where a small group was moving in. Leading the throng was a thin, ancient looking dwarf with a long white beard and grey-blue robes. At his side walked Kormag, and behind them a shambling mass of dwarves, or what had been dwarves, but now were clearly zombified. They shared a likeness to Spacker, but all lacked his intelligence, merely following after the ancient King Finbar, looking himself more dead than alive.

"_Shh!"_ Moira hissed, pulling the two away from the window. "Hide the lights! Hurry!" she urged. Rory was already running through the room blowing out candles as Moira herded them away from the window. "Keep down!" she said as Honeydew and Xephos began to crawl closer towards the window.

"We should try to hear what they're talking about." Xephos said. "It may help us to understand just what is going on here." Moira made no protest, and the two of them crouched below the sill, listening.

"Are you sure it was them?" came the voice of Finbar, deep regal, but aged.

"Aye," replied Kormag. "Two dwarves, and a human. One of the dwarves was as tall as a human.

"They're talking about us." Honeydew said lowly. "Have they been expecting us?"

"Have you sealed the doors?" Finbar asked.

"Aye." came the reply.

"Good. The portal construction is complete." Finbar rumbled. Honeydew and Xephos paled. When they heard that Rory had been put to carving obsidian, they had suspected that it had something to do with a portal, but this now left no doubt. He lowered his voice. "But first, we must tie off loose ends. Bring me Rockhammer." Finbar ordered.

Xephos heard Kormag agreeing as he turned hurriedly to the dwarves behind him.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

"Some of it." Spacker answered.

"They're coming for Rory." Honeydew said, looking directly at the short dwarf, now white as a ghost, Moira clinging to him. Honeydew turned and peered out the window. He saw Kormag was crossing the bridge and heading for the door of the forge. There came a knock. Silence ensued, then the knock drew louder.

"What do we do?" asked Xephos.

"I will go to them." Rory said, making for the door, despite Moira's protests. "I have to go. If they come in here to get me they'll find you two. I don't know what they want with you, but they seem awfully worried about finding you." the knock grew to a pounding, and Rory's name was called. In a trance-like state, he called an answer and descended the stairs, Moira, watching him go and then running to the window.

From below they heard Rory open the door to Kormag.

"The King wishes to speak with you, Rory." he growled.

They watched from the window as Kormag followed Rory to the crest the bridge, where Finbar and his routine stood waiting on the other side.

"Rory." Finbar said. "Come here please." the short dwarf reached the other side of the bridge, Kormag behind him, and the King's mob of undead goons before him. Rory bowed.

"My King," he squeaked. "I have been refining obsidian as you requested."

"We have have enough now." Finbar grated. "You have served me well. And I shall rewards you."

There seemed to be a sudden release in tension within the room, and even Rory seemed to suddenly have a great pressure taken away from him. But suddenly the mood shifted, for Finbar had spoken once more, and this time he said: "Seize him."

Kormag grabbed Rory from behind and forced him to his knees as Finbar stepped forward. Spacker leapt forth and wrested Moira away from the window, covering her mouth as she tried to scream. They all watched in terror as Finbar stepped forward, staring down upon Rory, who looked up in fear. The King outstretched his hand over Rory, and spoke again. ". . .Your reward. . ." he spoke as a black smoke began to engulf the King. It cleared as soon as it appeared, and before Rory stood the tall gaunt figure of Israphel where Finbar had been, robed in black, and white hand clawed above Rory. Xephos and Honeydew gasped as they saw their enemy before them, and he then placed his hand upon Rory's head, and the dwarf began to utter a strangled cry as soon as the white flesh touched his own. His skin grew gaunt and greenish, and his eyes follow and bloodshot. The black smoke re-engulfed Israphel, and then Finbar stood there again. He removed his hand, and Kormag released Rory. His body swayed for a moment and the it rose, and shuffled, slack-jawed and dead eyed, to join his fellows in the Dwarf King's undead routine.

"_Oh, my, gods." _Honeydew whispered. _"Oh my gods."_

"Ahh. . ." Finbar breathed. "I feel his power flowing through me." he looked back at Kormag. "You must interrogate the prisoner again." he ordered. "If he doesn't speak, kill him, and set those we have turned undead upon the city. Destroy this place."

"Aye." Kormag answered.

"I will travel to the portal and prepare the power transfer." Finbar finished.

"Yes, Master." Kormag bowed and walked down one of the side roads after being dismissed by Finbar, who himself turned and walked back the way he'd entered, back towards the hall.

Spacker released Moira, who made no noise, but stared at where Rory had stood on the bridge, silent cries racked her body as tears flowed freely. Xephos and Honeydew too stared at the bridge, but for a different reason.

"Israphel's here." Honeydew said quietly. "I though that we'd just get the map fragment and be out. I didn't think that any of what was going on here was our business."

"Well now that we know that Israphel's here, it definitely is. In fact, it couldn't be any more "our business"." Xephos answered. He breathed out, long and hard. "Shit, shit shit shit. This is going to complicate things."

"Poor Rory." Honeydew sighed, glancing at Moira. "He saved us."

". . .Rory. . ." she sobbed. ". . .no. . ."

"What did he say about a prisoner?" Spacker said suddenly. He looked as though he was barely containing a burning fury. They looked at him. "Kormag was sent to interrogate a prisoner. I don't know who it might be, but if he's being interrogated he might be able to tell us something important."

"Oh shit, you're right. And he said to kill him if he doesn't speak!" Xephos exclaimed. "We will have to hurry if we want to get to him. Where's the prison?"

Spacker knelt beside Moira, who was kneeling on the floor.

"Moira," Spacker said. "Do you know anything about the prisoner? And we need you to take us to the gaol. You need to pull yourself together." he spoke with a hard kindness, and Moira seemed to respond, slowly getting to her feet.

"Follow me, you must act quickly." she said, making for the door. They followed her down the stairs, and as they passed through the shopfront, she vaulted over the counter and emerged with a falchion and a shortbow and a quiver of arrows. "A stranger arrived last month." she said flatly, wiping the tears from her eyes and beard. "He was locked away in the prison by Kormag on Finbar's orders. It was after then that the gates were shut to anyone hoping to enter or leave." she led them out and over the bridge, up the side street that Kormag had gone. Every now and again a curtain could be seen shifting as a curious pair of eyes peeked through, or a cautious pair of hands threw them shut. "Now that Finbar is preoccupied, you should be able to free this man." They hurried down the avenue, leading to a doorway that opened into a tall and wide tunnel. Moira led them down this.

"What can you tell us about him?" Xephos asked. "The prisoner, that is."

"He's a human," Moira replied. "An old knight."

Xephos nearly stopped, and Honeydew thudded into him. "Peculier!?" he asked loudly. "Was he called Peculier?"

". . .It seems familiar. . ." Moira said.

"Oh gods. Hurry!" Honeydew called as they ran at high speed down the tunnel. Soon they could hear a voice ahead, and they ran harder. They barged through the doorway at the end of the passage to find a long avenue of gaol cells, and at the furthest Kormag stood in the entrance.

"You will talk, scum! Tell me what you know!" Kormag spat, in his hand he held a leather strap, and as he spoke he lashed out at an unseen victim.

"Never!" came the pained and weary shout that could only be Knight Peculier. He cried out at another lash of the strap.

"Moira! Shoot him!" Xephos yelled. Kormag turned as the lady-dwarf fumbled with her arrow.

"_You!"_ Kormag yelled, picking up his battle-axe and running towards them. "Die!" he yelled. He met them as Moira only just had the arrow knocked in, and so Spacker stepped forwards with his the flat of his cleaver braced on his forearm, held high as Kormag brought down his axe. The impact warped the length of Spacker's weapon, and at the same time there came a crack from his arm. Spacker grunted and fell backwards as Kormag tried to make another attack, but Moira let loose her arrow, and it found it's rest below Kormag's eye. He was dead before he hit the floor, but Xephos and Honeydew were stepping over him before even that. They ran towards the open cell door at the end of the room. In the doorway, the thin figure of a weary man was standing up. He looked up at Xephos and Honeydew as they approached and then spoke.

"Heroes." Knight Peculier croaked. "It is good to see you." he barely finished the last word before falling to the stone floor, exhausted.


	32. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter32

Chapter 32: Beer and Lava

The company made slow progress back to the city, Moira leading as Xephos and Honeydew carried the barely lucid Peculier, with Spacker following, wincing with every step due to his broken arm. Moira led them through the city and across the square to the abandoned inn. Xephos and Honeydew had to stoop in the low ceilinged room as they carried Peculier upstairs, where they laid him on an bed too small for him. Spacker too sat on a bed as the other three stood about, examining the degree of their injuries. Peculier was starved and exhausted, with several additional scars that he had lacked when they saw him last, he had also grown a scraggly beard in his captivity. Spacker's arm had broken when he blocked Kormag's axe, and his weapon had been bent beyond use.

"They look like they need aid." Moira declared. "We need to get supplies to help heal them."

At that moment Peculier began to wake, turning his head to look over at them.

"What in the world are you doing here?" he asked, voice weak. They moved over to his bedside. "I was sure that it was the end for me." he added.

"We're here to find a map piece." Xephos said. "The last one."

"You look great, man." Honeydew said. "We found your stuff outside the gaol." he nodded to the bedside table, where they'd placed Knight Peculier's helm and sword. "But it's good to see you again!"

"It's lucky that our path's have crossed." Peculier groaned. "Or I would be dead now."

"It is lucky." Xephos agreed.

"I don't think that it was luck, Xephos. I think it was fate." Honeydew said.

"But you say you are here to find the final map fragment?" Peculier interjected. "You have found two already?"

"Yes." Xephos and Honeydew both said.

"Well done!" Peculier congratulated.

". . .But why are you here?" Xephos asked.

Peculier leaned back.

"Adaephon told me the wall was impossible to breach, and yet it was broken. Do you remember that?" he asked.

"We do, it took ages to rebuild." Xephos answered as he pulled up an undersized chair.

"Adaephon said that Verigan made a deal with the dwarves so that The Wall would never fall." Peculier continued. "But something must've gone wrong, so I came here."

"It is true," Spacker sudden spoke out. "I used to travel with Verigan. A long time ago."

"Right?" Xephos said.

"He asked the dwarves to make sure-" he coughed. "That The Wall would never fall."

"Did the dwarves not keep up their end of the deal?" Honeydew asked.

"What kind of help did he ask for?" Peculier said, trying to sit up to look at Spacker across the room.

"I don't know." Spacker slurred. "But I fear that the answer my lie in the Deepcore."

"The. . .Deepcore?" Peculier asked.

"Aye. . .an abandoned mineshaft below the city that was sealed long ago." Spacker lay back in the bed he sat on. ". . .I fear. . . I fear that it has been reopened."

"Enough talk you two. You need rest." Moira scolded them. "Some of the King's beer should put you right."

"What?" Honeydew asked.

"The King's special brew is know to cure ailments like fatigue and speed recovery. It should help these two to recover." Moira explained. "As for the Deepcore, you'll need the key for that. It should be somewhere in the King's chambers."

"Where do we find these things?" Xephos asked.

"I can accompany you and show you the way." she offered.

"Okay then." Xephos said. "We should go now. We'll need to catch up with Finbar after this and we'll need to hurry to find him."

"I'll lead the way to the cold storage." Moira said, starting for the stairs, looking back at their bedridden comrades. "Try to be quiet if any patrols come around." she suggested, then leading Xephos and Honeydew down the stairway and through the bottom floor of the inn, out into the square.

"So," Xephos said once out there. "where to now?"

"Follow me," Moira led them back down the avenue toward the main hall. "I'll lead the way." Honeydew beamed across at Xephos.

"I told you it was a saying." he grinned. "So, Moira." he said to the lady-dwarf. "Since you're a smith, what kind of weapons do you make?" he asked.

"If you need weapons, maybe you should've thought about that before you came here." she answered brusquely, walking with pace to the right side of the great hall, to a gateway identical to the one on the left. It was boarded up with thick boards of wood, which Honeydew, as the only one with an axe, was set to cutting down. He hacked through the barrier in seconds. As he stepped back though, there came a groan from the darkness beyond. The zombified body of a dwarf stumbled through the gap, and Honeydew recoiled at the sight of it.

"It's a dwarf!" he yelled. "Oh gods, an undead dwarf!"

As he stumbled backwards Moira drew her bow and shot the dwarf dead. It fell on it's side and lay still on the floor.

"What exactly happened here Moira?" Xephos asked as they looked down at the body.

"It happened slowly at first." she said as she gestured towards the gateway. "A pale-faced man was seen lurking around. I think it was that same man that turned Rory." she said this unflinching. "Dwarves began to go missing, and more began to be drafted into the guard." They stepped through the gateway, Honeydew leading, sword out. Another zombie tried to attack him, but he stabbed it through the neck, and it thudded to the stone floor.

"Others fell ill, and our great king, Finbar became sick and died." Moira continued. "But unlike the others, he rose again with great and terrible powers! No one could defeat him, and soon we were all under his rule once more, but now he was a cruel leader, and we were his slaves."

"Woah." Xephos said. "It must have been some kind of magic of Israphel's that brought him back."

"Israphel's the pale man?" Moira said. "That man that killed my Rory?"

Xephos didn't answer.

"Which way to the cold storage?" Honeydew asked, breaking the tension.

Moira appeared to be less sure on the location than she at first implied to be. The gateway led to dozens of passages that opened into rooms, ranging from barrackses to banquet halls. Every room had a layer of dust covering everything, and cobwebs hung from the corners. Occasionally they met a patrol of zombies or a lone sentry, which they dispatched with ease. On the occasion they entered the banquet hall they encountered a troope of skeletons that were spawning from a spawner atop the table. After exiting the hall, now covered with noticeably more bones than before, Moira led them to the next door.

When she pushed through it a breath of cold air rushed out to meet them. They stared down into a long dark stairway, a lonely groan of a zombie drifting up. In the half-darkness they walked cautiously, an undead dwarf stumbling up the stairs toward them. Moira buried her falchion in it's head.

"Gods, it's so sad." Honeydew sighed. "Having to kill them."

"Better dead than undead." Moira replied, voice cracking halfway through. For her sake, neither Xephos or Honeydew made any sign that they heard it.

"Oh, it is a bit cold down here." Honeydew breathed as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The room they stood in was dimly lit, only by a few hunks of glowstone in the walls. By some work of the dwarves, the room was as cold as the nights on Skyhold, frost coating the enormous barrels the stood in rows along the wall.

"So this is the storeroom for the brew." Xephos said walking down the passage between the rows of barrels, each three yards wide, and five long, all resting on their sides atop scaffolds.

"Oh my gods. . ." Honeydew gasped looking at rows of alcohol. "Beer!" he yelled.

"We'll need this to get it back." Moira said, picking up a single large amphora from the wall.

"Which brew do we want?" Xephos asked.

"Any'll do. . ." Honeydew said awestruck. "I haven't had a beer in an age."

"We want a barrel labeled: The King's Brew." Moira said, pacing down the row of taps, jutting from the barrels at a dwarven height. "It's made by the brewers for the King at the time. A very special blend."

Moira eventually found the barrel that they were searching for, a keg identical to all others save for it's label. She uncorked the amphora and held it under the tap that jutted from the barrel. Honeydew and Xephos watched as Moira released the valve and a dark liquid began to fill the earth-ware case.

"Oh my goodness, look at it!" Honeydew said, salivating.

". . .Wow. . ." Xephos agreed. The amphora soon overflowed with a rich head of froth.

"Oh, man." Honeydew moaned. "Look at that foamy head. . ." he suddenly turned and ran back down the aisle of beer barrels. "Cups!" he yelled. "We need some fucking cups!" there came the sound of a massive clutter as Honeydew began throwing around small kegs at the wall where Moira had gotten the amphora, for there were many things stacked here. He soon raced back with two large tankards, and handed one to Xephos. "I know we have to get this stuff back to the boys upstairs but I just need to try some of this." he said, filling his tankard with dark liquor, Xephos followed his example eagerly.

"Cheers!" Xephos said, as they both took a draught from the thick cloud of foam.

"Ahh. . ." Honeydew sighed as he swallowed the rich beer, so flavorsome it was almost thick.

"Goodness, it's really goos isn't it!" Xephos laughed as he took another heavy gulp.

"That is enough for now!" Moira said impatiently, grabbing both tankards from their drinkers, who were sad to see them taken. "We need to go!"

"I'll be back for more of that." Honeydew said, pointing at the tankards, sitting on the scaffold that the barrel rested on.

They left the cold depths of the beer cellar, back up into the warm dwarven tunnels.

"Now you just need your key." Moira said.

"Where did you say that was?" Xephos asked. "In Finbar's chambers, wasn't it?"

"Oh-aye." Moira answered.

"I trust you know the way to this one better than the beer cellar?" Honeydew asked. This received him a stamp on the foot that had him limping for the next fifty yards.

Moira reliably led them back through the tunnels and back out into the great hall, but now she took the to the wall opposite the entranceway. Here below the tail of the molten hawk, there stood another gateway, this one with heavy doors and a miniature portcullis, all of which were open.

Upon entry to the antechamber the trio noticed that the room had an air of neglect. The surfaces were covered in dust, cobwebs filled the nooks, and the torches had been allowed to die, the only illumination came from ornamental magma runnels that fell from the ceiling to floor by the walls. Honeydew entered first, and all were quiet as they delved into the dark room, making for a large set of doors opposite them on the other side of the room. The tall dwarf took another step forwards, but did not notice when his foot came down on a thin strain of cobweb that spanned the room. The thread snapped, and as it did the whiplash of the break sprung through the cobwebs that covered the room, hearing it, the company stopped. The last reverberations echoed through the antechamber from the ceiling and stopped.

"What was that noise?" Xephos asked, looking up. No-one spoke for a long while.

"I think we should make for the door quickly." Honeydew suggested, when a familiar sucking and clicking sound came from above, and several sets of red eyes opened to stare down at them. _"Right now!"_ Honeydew yelled.

Picking up Moira each by an arm, Xephos and Honeydew ran to for the door as the black bodied spiders began to descend from the ceiling. As they ran they were slowed by tiny strands of sticky web that were invisible in the dark, gradually tangling them. Moira, drew her falchion and turned to face the beasts as Honeydew and Xephos pulled themselves free of the webs, while the spiders began to close in around them.

"There's a lot of them!" Honeydew cried as he drew his own sword, his offhand still tangled in web. He slew a spider that tried to grab his leg while he had his back turned. "Get away from me!" he yelled.

"They're coming from the ceiling!" Xephos said as he drew his bow. Moira jumped at a spider and hacked into it's abdomen before she stabbed one that suddenly leapt at her. Xephos loosed a shaft at one of the several crawling from the walls.

"They're coming from the walls, man!" Honeydew began to run back towards the closed doors, haphazardly hacking at threads that he couldn't see and unwary of any other tripwires. "They're coming from the goddamn walls! Fucking spiders! Come on, follow me!"

Xephos and Moira ran after Honeydew as the spiders began to follow, skittering after them on black legs.

Honeydew barreled through the two heavy doors and threw them wide open. The light stunned the spiders a moment as Xephos and Moira ran after him, Honeydew throwing the doors shut behind them, and barring it.

"We're gonna have a hell of a time getting out." Xephos puffed, pulling strands of spiderweb from his arms and head.

"There's some light in here at least." Honeydew said as he turned. "Oh wow, look at this place, it's amazing."

The room they stood in was more finely furnished than the previous, and was obviously the quarters of King Finbar. At he room's head there was a bed large enough for a human king, and everywhere the stone was polished to a shine and, though coated in dust, it still shone in the light of two thick gouts of magma that fell from the ceiling into wells in the floor, bubbling as it did.

"Any idea where we might find this key to the Deepcore that you told us about?" Xephos asked Moira.

"We'll have to look around." she stated. Honeydew immediately made his way over to a set of gilded chests and set to ransacking them. Xephos and Moira followed his example, and although they didn't find the key in any of these, many items still found their way into their packs.

"Beard dyes over here." Xephos called to the dwarves after discovering a set of glass pots, with colours ranging from natural pigments to purple and green. "Just incase either of you two are looking for a change."

"You have a beard too mate." Honeydew answered as he set to placing his plunder of gold and silver valuables into a small chest which he seemed intent on taking with him.

Moira snorted. "You call _that_ a beard?" Honeydew gave a long laugh at Xephos' offended look.

"Wait, has anyone checked the bed?" Honeydew asked suddenly.

"No." Xephos answered.

"No." Moira replied.

"Oh, I _bet_ that the key is in the bed." Honeydew said as he ran up to it and leapt onto the huge mattress set into the stone podium. He savagely threw pillows and covers aside, tore at sheets and finally threw the mattress aside and nearly into one of the magma streams. "It only fucking is!" he yelled in triumph, bending to pick up a heavy looking iron key.

"Great!" Xephos said. "Will that do, Moira?" he asked.

"Aye, that looks like it'll do." she answered.

"Uh. . . problem, though." Xephos said as Honeydew walked back down and picked up his chest of loot. "How do we get back out to the guys with the beer when the spiders are out there?"

"We'll have to fight our way out." Moira said factually.

"I'd forgotten how smart dwarves were." Honeydew grinned. "None of this try to find a way around nonsense. Would you believe, Moira, that some humans would prefer to sneak around a fight?"

"If you remember, Honeydew, _you_ were the one who wanted to go around the Trials at Skyhold." Xephos huffed. Honeydew just laughed. "But really, how are we going to get out? The second we open that door, the spiders are going to leap at us." he nodded over at the door that was shaking on it's hinges.

"The light should hold them back for a few seconds." Moira suggested. "That could help us."

"I have an idea." Honeydew said as he walked over to a small single-legged table. He picked it up and held it under one arm, the large circle of the tabletop spread before him like a huge shield. He brandished it a few times to get a feel for it. "You two open the doors and run after me as I ram through them."

Xephos thought for a moment, scratching his beard. "It might work." he sighed. "But we don't really have much of choice but to do it."

"Right." Honeydew grinned, table in one arm and chest in the other. "You two grab either door, and I'll get a run-up. You open them when I get close, and hopefully the light should blind the spiders."

"Yeah." Xephos said as he and Moira stood at either door. They threw off the bar and had to put their weight into them to stop them being pushed open.

"Just remember to get behind me and the table when I run past-"

"Just do it!" Moira grunted as she gritted her teeth, trying to stop the door flying open under the weight of the spiders.

Honeydew suddenly hiked up the table leg under his armpit and began to run at the door. As he approached Xephos and Moira eased off the doors, only for the spiders to fling them open. The two stepped in either side of Honeydew as the spiders, recoiling from the light, were smashed by the tabletop. Honeydew charged ahead through the dark room, spiders colliding with his strange shield and bouncing off or being trampled underfoot. Soon the spiders that had recovered began to give chase as they made their may to the other side of the room. Honeydew dropped the table and the three stepped over it, leaving it sitting upside down in the antechamber to be enveloped in a swarm of spiders. They ran through the doors into the great hall, turing to drawn the doors shut with the spiders still running towards them.

After taking a moment to recover their breath, the three began walking back towards the entrance to the town, passing under the gateway and past stone buildings. More eyes peered out at them as they walked by, and instead of hiding again, some lingered. Xephos led the way into the inn overlooking the square. It was still bare of any dwarves, the bench was covered in a blanket of dust and the stools were all thrown about as they had been when they left. Trudging to the rooms upstairs they heard the sound of Spacker moaning before they pushed into the room that he and Peculier lay in.

"Ah, hello you two." Honeydew said, setting down his chest of loot. "Still well?"

"Hardly," Spacker coughed. "Our wounds are grievous. We need the good stuff."

Moira had taken two tankards from downstairs at the bar and now filled the two with the dark beer. Xephos picked the two cups up and walked over to Spacker on his bed, arm held in a makeshift splint constructed in their absence. "Here you go Spacker." he handed the dwarf the cup then turned to Peculier, sitting up on his too-small bed. "One for you too, pal." he gave him the tankard. "Get that down ya'."

"Oh, this looks good." Peculier said as he took the heavy tankard, arm shaking from the weight. He and Spacker began to drink heavily from the cups, hardly stopping until they were empty.

"Oh. . . that _is_ the good stuff." Spacker rumbled.

"Ah, it hits the spot, certainly." Peculier sat up more straightly. "And amazingly, I feel my strength returning. Nice and dark too."

"We got the key to the Deepcore too." Moira said. "And Spacker, that beer won't heal your arm straight away, but it will speed the process along."

"Is there any more in the jug?" Honeydew asked, peering into the amphora. "Bollocks." he said when he found the result.

"Well now that's done, we must head to the Deepcore." Xephos said to Honeydew. "Moira, where is the way to it?" he asked. She told him that the entrance could be found if they followed the main corridor that branched right from the great hall until it turned to stairs going downwards.

"Alright." Honeydew said, making for the stairs. "Peculier, we'll come back for you once we have dealt with Finbar. Please look after that chest for me, and remember not-"

"Of course not! I'm coming with you." Knight Peculier protested, stepping from the bed without so much as a judder from his legs.

"Knight Peculier, you've just been in a prison cell for a month, you can't come!" Xephos said, trying to convince him.

"He's right! Who'll look after my treasure?" Honeydew added.

"Nonsense. After that beer I feel like a new man."

"Certainly leaner." Honeydew muttered.

"Moira, is this safe?" Xephos asked. The lady-dwarf was examining Spacker's splint.

"Aye, it might be. The beer could've done him enough good to have him accompany you."

"Right then. We must go to this Deepcore that Spacker told me all about." Peculier said, tone brooking no argument.

"Aye, Moira and I will stay here and burn the bodies of the undead dwarves." Spacker grunted. "We must also convince the alive ones to rise up against their fear and get things back to normal." he gave a hacking cough. "I wish ye the very best heroes. And I'll make sure to keep a _very_ close eye on that chest. . ."

"Be safe." Moira said as they started down the stairs, Peculier with his father's helm on his head and sword at his side.

"Farewell dwarves!" Xephos called as they stepped out of the inn. He waved up at the two of them, watching them out of a window.

"Let us go heroes." Peculier said. "Time is of the essence."

And so they walked out of the city, and as they left, the doors of the houses of stone opened and for the first time in weeks the nervous feet of the oppressed dwarves stepped out of their houses and into their city.

_Author's Notes:_

_It is with some degree of shame that I upload this chapter, as I feel that it is somewhat of a let-down when compared to my most recent ones. That's because the episode that this chapter was based upon was what I like to call a "Guff Episode". A Guff Episode in the Shadow of Israphel will consist mainly of some very important exposition, which is very important to write about, juxtaposed to Simon and Lewis aimlessly getting sidetracked and getting lost on a very straightforward path. And while this normally makes for an entertaining video, the result is both tedious to write and boring to read. And so in the resulting chapter from this episode I have had to cut out much of Honeydew and Xephos' pointless and distracted wandering, and once that is removed from an already short episode it gets shorter (This chapter is only five pages, where most float around ten or twelve), and I had to run with the script a bit to make things a bit more exciting and longer._

_On a totally different note, I have recently reached an enormous 400 pages. That's right, those of you that are reading this have read a fan-fiction that is roughly the same length as The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers (And still not finished.). You deserve congratulations for sticking with this, a work riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, contrived situations and self-deprecating notes by said works own author. Go treat yourself to a snack from the pantry for this milestone. We've earned it._

_This Chapter's Episode: watch?v=7jajzWpVpJ8_

_Twitter: /OJvanderBeek_

_Forum Page: . ?57102-shadow-of-israphel-fanfiction-mother-thread-(o-j-van-der-beek)_


	33. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter33

Chapter 33: The Deepcore

Before them the stone floor dropped away into this air, a pool of hot magma roiling below. Across the pool a continuation of the tunnel floor rose up , lower than the one they stood on, but too far to reach by jumping.

"You're sure this is the way?" Xephos asked to Peculier, standing closest to the precarious drop.

"Aye, the key goes here." he answered, patting a keyhole in the wall of the tunnel. They had followed the directions that Moira gave them by the word, anticipating a door that would close off the Deepcore, but in it's stead they found this to await them.

"Have you got the key?" Xephos asked to Honeydew.

"Yes." the dwarf said as he withdrew the key from his pocket. He looked warily over the magma moat to the platform below. "What is this going to do exactly?" he wondered aloud while he walked over to the keyhole. Careful to thread it the right way, he inserted the key into the slot. "There we go," he said. ". . .and. . ." he turned the iron key and there came a groan from either wall that ran along the moat. With a grinding of stone on stone from the walls a set of stairs narrow stairs were pushed from the wall, spanning to the other side of the magma. They emerged quickly and stopped two yards out from either wall, not meeting in the middle, leaving a moderate gap between them where the molten rock glowed below.

"Well, onward to the Deepcore." Xephos said. He was the first to start down the stairs, watching the gap carefully. Honeydew went second, on the opposite left hand stairway, and Peculier followed Xephos. The path led them to where the tunnel continued, a large square affair coursing into the darkness. "Be careful, it's dark down here." Xephos commented as he held his torch aloft. They continued to follow the passage, when abruptly they came to a wall in which a door was set. Upon it a ancient sign hung, reading: -_NOTICE- Pickaxe require for entry. Helms optional._ Xephos read it aloud by the light of his torch. "That's unlucky for me." he said. "I am the only one without a helmet."

"You'll be fine." Honeydew said dismissively. "I wouldn't worry about the pickaxes either. We're not here to mine."

"I fear that we shall have to be frugal with our torches too. The way shall be long and dark." Peculier suggested, torchlight shining from his helmet.

"We'd better get a move on then." Honeydew said, pushing Xephos for the door.

Falling into the doorway, Xephos recovered himself and turned the latch, pushing his way into another tunnel. This one was much larger, three times or so than that of the one across the doorway, and was cut in a rough circular manner as through bored by a large drill.

"It is dark very dark in here." Xephos commented. His voice boomed from the walls that the torchlight barely touched. Running down the middle of the tunnel there was a set of rails, put in place for mine-carts by the dwarven miners.

"I guess that we follow the tunnel." Honeydew said as he and Peculier walked close to Xephos, staying in the light of the flaming brand.

"There's treasure over there." Xephos suddenly exclaimed. Stopping, he pointed over to where, half buried in shingles, a large chest lay against the wall. Without a moments hesitation, Honeydew and Xephos made for it, leaving Peculier standing bewildered in the dark to come after them. The two reached the chest and set to moving the fallen rocks off of it's frame.

"It's sort of buried. . ." Xephos said as he pushed a smaller stone off the lid. The stone clattered to the floor, a sound that echoed off down the tunnel before dying out. Xephos and Honeydew did not notice this, and also did not notice when the rock moved of it's own accord. It gave a shake and then the insect's hard shell opened up. From the rock-like carapace two dark eyes opened, dozens of small skittery legs emerged and along it's hard back several long sharp spines sprung. Moving in a snaking manner it began to scuttle for Honeydew's leg. Dropping another stone, Xephos spotted the creature as it was about to meet with the dwarf's boot.

"Ooh!" he cried. "Honeydew look out!"

Honeydew looked down to see insect try to jump onto his foot. Gasping, he swept it out of the way and threw down his rock onto the creature's back, but it only slithered out from under it.

"_Oh fuck, it's a silverfish! Get the fuck out!" _Honeydew yelled as he saw it. The rock pile suddenly began to crawl, as from within the rocks there came a tide of the grey shelled silverfish, all making for the intruders.

Xephos jumped back, away from the swarm. "Back through the door!" he yelled. _"Back through the door!"_ he pushed Peculier ahead of him as he and Honeydew ran back through the tunnel for the entrance. Behind them they could hear the hissing and skittering of hundreds of tiny legs pursuing them. "Over the lava!" Xephos cried as they pushed back through door. "Quick!" with great haste they ran back over the stairways, silverfish in tow, forming a huge grey carpet of spines. They reached the top as the swarm began to follow them up the stairs, many falling off as they pushed for room on the narrow way. Xephos reached over for the key, and turning it back, withdrew it from the wall. The stairs quickly began grating back into the wall, and with every inch taken away more and more silverfish fell away into the hot magma below as others tried to climb over their peers to stay alive. Soon there was no ground left to have, and the last of the swarm toppled into the abyss, hissing wildly.

Peculier watched them thrash in the magma as they fell. "What are they?" he asked.

"Silverfish." Honeydew explained. "Nasty fuckers, they are. They're pretty rare, but once there's an infestations of them there's no getting them out. See, they breed like mad and will attack in swarms. At Dwergholm we had only two encounters with them ever, and had to close the mineshaft they were in for three weeks while we poisoned them." he continued to talk as Xephos reinserted the key. "The problem is, if only one is left it can still repopulate an entire swarm. They live in cave systems and can survive for decades."

"A trap, maybe?" Peculier wondered.

"Maybe." Xephos shrugged as the stairs reemerged.

"That's really devious then!" Honeydew gasped. "That's just plain mean!"

"We should keep quieter this time," Peculier suggested as they headed for the door once more. "and our hands to ourselves."

"Just stay away from the walls." Honeydew said as they stepped back into the tunnel.

"Into the deep dark cave of the Deepcore." Xephos intoned.

They walked then in silence, keeping near Xephos, who held the torch still. Their steps echoed through the tunnel as the light dancesd from the walls, creating the illusion that they crawled with some form of life, illusions that the three could swear at times were real. They followed the cart rails for a very long while, the path making a steady course straight ahead, steadily heading downwards as it did so. Honeydew wondered aloud as to what could have made such a tunnel, as he reckoned that it was not a natural creation. Every so often they would walk past a smaller tunnel that headed from the main passage into the rock. After longer than an hour of silent walking, they came to what appeared to be a work station created in the middle to the vast tunnel.

"What is this?" Xephos asked as they walked away from the rail station and into the alleys of benches. Against the walls old furnaces and forges were standing covered in dust, and all about them long wooden workbenches old tools were strewn. "Some kind of workshop?"

"This must be the diamond refinery that Spacker told me about." Peculier said.

"Diamond refinery? Ooh!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Do you think there's any stuff left behind?"

"Spacker did say they made bryne-steel armor down here." Peculier answered.

". . .And it certainly looks like they left in a hurry." Xephos said, examining a tool left idly on a workbench. "It might be worth looking around. Stay in the torchlight." he ordered as they wound through the benches, looking for anything of use under or on them. Honeydew was the first to find an article of use. He gave a joyful cry as he held aloft a set of shining greaves, age and dust unable to tint their surface. The shin-guards were made for use by a shorter dwarf, and so they appeared rather small against Honeydew's larger legs, but he wore them none the less. As they continued to pace through the tables, a shimmering caught Xephos' attention within a wooden box. He went to it and found within was a hauberk of bryne-steel chain. Torch in one hand, he held the light over the faintly blued steel, much lighter and stronger than the typical mail.

"Wow." Honeydew gasped. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. . ."

Xephos smiled. "Well I found it, so it's mine." he added defensively.

"Put it on." Peculier encouraged. "I'll hold the light." and so Xephos donned the hauberk of chain mail, which had been made with a dwarf in mind, and instead of reaching mid-thigh, floated at his waist. They continued to search, and found much more armor. When they were ready to continue Xephos hung a spectacled helm at his hip, and wore a pair of matching gauntlets and vambraces alongside his hauberk, while Honeydew had more pieces of plate armor strapped to more baldrics about his torso. Peculier had elected to take nothing, as any heavy armor would have been an encumberment in his quick-footed fighting style. They had found, while searching, three undead dwarves wandering the aisles. These they quickly put to rest. While fighting one just outside of the torchlight, Honeydew could swear that he was fighting the the body of Rory. Once he had finished, he took the torch and led the other two around the body, keeping it out of torchlight, mentioning nothing.

The tunnel grew more roughly carved after then. The walls, once seemingly bored by a large worm now were rough and jagged, the floor too seemed more uneven, and as the three friends followed the cart track they found the dark closing in around them increasingly. Suddenly the torchlight fell upon something before them, a huge shape wrought from metal, as high as the ceiling and wide as the walls. Either side of it's massive body two huge treads held the bulk of the machine above the ground.

"There's something up ahead." Honeydew whispered as his dwarven eyes saw it before the light touched it, hand going to his sword in fear of an attack.

"What is it?" Xephos said in awe as the light of the flame illuminated the machine. "It's huge!"

"This must be one of the machines that Spacker spoke of." Peculier said.

"Is there anything else that Spacker said that we might want to know?!" Honeydew said in exasperation, looking back to the bulk. "What does it do?"

"It's a drilling machine." Peculier answered. "I would assume that it dug out the tunnel were's in now. This must be the back of it."

"Does the tunnel just end here then?" Honeydew asked. "Did we miss something?"

"No, look over here!" Xephos called from the edge of the torchlight. Honeydew, who was now baring the flame, came to him, standing nearest the right wall, where a small gap was between it and the machine. "It continues down that way." he pointed down the length of the enormous treads, where the tunnel continued onwards past it.

Xephos squeezed into the gap and began shuffling along, Peculier and Honeydew following. "So, is this thing got a drill or something?" he asked as he stepped out of the gap, looking up to the face of the huge machine. "Oh yeah. It does." he said flatly as the others stepped out next to him. Above them, jutting from the metallic form of the vehicle an immense drill hung over them. It was cast from a hard black metal, covered in mean spikes for shifting rock from the cone of the drill.

"Wow, it's beautiful! Such fine dwarven workmanship." Honeydew said in awe as he gazed at the mean looking contraption.

"Where's it been drilling?" Xephos asked, turing to look down the tunnel further, but seeing nought but darkness. They continued back down the rails, the gradient of the slope continuing to drop.

"The entrance to the Deepcore must be somewhere here." Peculier said. The words were nigh out of his mouth when a wall reared up before them. In it's face another tunnel stretched, much smaller than the other, and it's walls smooth.

"What's this?" Honeydew said, stopping. He turned to take a look back down the tunnel to the drilling machine, way back in the dark. "Why would they stop drilling here?"

"Well this must be the entrance to the Deepcore." Xephos looked down the tunnel. He glanced at Honeydew. "After you, friend." Honeydew, torch held before him, began down the tunnel, Peculier and Xephos following.

"I wonder how deep we are now?" Honeydew asked.

"We must be almost at the bedrock layer now." Xephos deduced. "We've been heading down for hours." The tunnel then came to an abrupt end, and there did the passage open into a cavern of awesome proportions. They stood in the corner of the cavern, atop a platform of heavy iron, the light from their torch failing to reach ceiling or the other two walls of the enormous room.

"Oh my gods, what the hell is this?" Xephos said as he stared out over the massive expanse of metal paneling that covered the floor.

"There's iron everywhere!" Honeydew exclaimed. "Why would they build this?"

"Spacker said that this was a mine, and it was abandoned after the Wall went up." Peculier said.

"More information from your best friend eh?!" Honeydew cried. "I'll ask again, what else did he say about this place?"

"Lots. I do not know how much of it will be of value."

"Guys, there are some stairs over here." Xephos said over them. He stood by the right wall of the cavern, where at the end of the platform a set of metal grated stairs led down onto a fenced off area of the metal floor. They walked to here, and soon found that it was a dead end.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Honeydew, looking out of the metal fences to the dark beyond.

"What about this. Have you seen this?" Xephos asked. Honeydew turned and came over to where he stood beside a tall thin pedestal, at the top of which sat a button. "There's a button." he said.

"Perhaps we should try it?" Peculier said.

"It could do anything." Honeydew said.

"I'm sure pushing it can't be any worse than the situation we're already in." Xephos stroked his beard. "Why don't you do the honors?" he suggested, gesturing to the button atop it's pedestal.

"Okay. . ." Honeydew agreed, stepping towards it. "Okay." he said quietly as he forcefully stamped down on the small button. There came a creak from the fence before the pedestal, and the section then began to slide quickly into the ground, clanging softly as it came to rest. Yet as it stopped there came another sound, a grinding of something beyond the darkness. Slowly, from the metal floor of the cavern a large cube of white light was pushed from the ground, and further off, another followed. Soon a trail of white light was trailing off into the darkness, stretching far before them. "The lights are coming on!" Xephos said in awe as they rose. There then came a gurgling sound as from the darkness surrounding the lights the stunted figures of zombified dwarves shuffled into the blazing halos, heading towards them.

"The machine awakens!" Peculier cried.

"We have to go." Xephos said, drawing his sabre and donning his helm. "Follow the lights!" they ran out of the gates towards the first light. Xephos ducked under a zombie's swipe and cut it in two with a powerful slash as Honeydew created a huge notch in the skull of another at their left. An arrow screamed past his eyes from the darkness, clattering across the floor. "There are skeletons!" he yelled as they kept running.

"It's fine!" Honeydew answered. "Just keep going!" Peculier kicked away a dwarf and spun to slash across it's eyes before following to the next light, their footfalls clanging like rats on a large bell. They ran long and hard for many minutes, passing tens of the lights, pushing out of the ground like huge lamps. Sabre busied by dispatching undead dwarves, Xephos did not notice when a creeper stole upon him. A cry from Honeydew saved him, as he flung himself away when it exploded, his new armor protecting him as the blast sent him flying half into the dark. "I'm okay!" he cried as Honeydew and Knight Peculier stopped their flight to wait for him. He felt a hand in the dark grab at him, and so he kicked out, and scrambled after his comrades, where they ran into the light.

Spiders then did make attempt to waylay them, leaping from the darkness, red eyes barely visible in the blinding white, but an ever present reminder of their pursuit. Soon after, the lamps ended, and in their place to the company's right there stretched a walkway, iron barriers either side, and the white lights set into the floor. Down this they ran, for there was nowhere else to run.

Honeydew, his breath now short, stopped a moment to regain it, but after looking behind him, he soon resumed at half again the pace. "Oh gods!" he yelled as he saw the trail of mobs that followed them down the path. "Don't stop!" he cried as streaked past Peculier and Xephos. Turning, Xephos too saw the horde that pursued them, a swarm of spiders and dwarves with creepers and skeletons occasionally in the ranks, and he gave a fearful cry before too gaining pace, dragging Peculier after him. He pushed ahead of Honeydew, and before them in the light he saw a set of stairs, unlit, resting on the walkway.

"There's stairs here!" he called. "Stairs up ahead!"

"Up them, quick!" Honeydew yelled as they mounted them. The light from the walkway grew dim as they reached the top, where a metal wall met them, and an iron door stood at the top of the stairs, half open. They entered and as Honeydew turned to shut it he saw the monsters beginning to mount the stairs. He slammed the door and barred it before the three all leant against the wall, panting resting as the angry moans began to hammer on the surface. "Where are we?" Honeydew said.

"Some sort of building?" Xephos suggested as he took off his helm. They stood on the landing for a set of stairs that went upwards to their left, and all was made of metal, the same white lights as on the trail glowed in the roof.

"We'll have to stay here until the mobs disperse." Peculier heaved. "Or we find another way out."

"Where does this go?" Xephos said as they started up the stairs, the other's following. The stairs doubled back and they emerged into a small room. On the wall before them, facing right off the walkway there was a huge window that took up the entire wall. All around the room the familiar glow of green light bled from the glass screens upon the various devices that littered the surrounding walls. Before the huge window there was a seat, and from the machine in front of that a strange wheel, like that of a ship's, jutted.

". . .Honeydew, I don't think this is a building." Xephos said as the dwarf followed him up onto the bridge. "I think it's a machine. We're in a machine."

"One of the glorious mining machines of the dwarves, oh wow." Honeydew grinned, striding over to the console.

"Well, about that, Honeydew. I don't think this is dwarven. Look around you, this is the same kind of stuff that we saw in Skyhold and the Nether rooms that Lysander said were made by this "precursor race"."

Honeydew suddenly seemed crestfallen.

"These Precursors are bloody everywhere recently." he said as he fell into the seat. He suddenly looked very interested, and sat up straight, grasping the wheel and looking straight ahead. "How do we make this baby go?" he asked suddenly.

"Where would we go to?" asked Xephos.

"I wouldn't touch any of this-" Peculier began as Honeydew hammered a yellow button on the console. The machine stirred slightly as somewhere on the exterior of the machine two lights flicked on, beaming light before the huge black drill that they now saw before them.

"Wow. . ." Honeydew whispered. "I've got a semi."

"Wait," Peculier said lowly and yet forcefully. "there is something moving out there." They leaned closer to the window, peering ahead into the darkness where something was stirring. Suddenly from the shadows there loomed a the huge figure of a giant man, staring at the lights.

"_Oh shit get down!"_ Xephos hissed as the titan began to first emerge from the shadows. They fell to the floor and did not move nor make sound for a few moments, listening as heavy footsteps drew nearer the machine.

"_What in the name of Jebus fuck was that!?"_ Honeydew whispered harshly.

"_I think it's why the dwarves decided to leave the Deepcore alone."_ Peculier moaned.

"_They dug to deep. We dwarves always do that."_ Honeydew groaned. Xephos slowly began to stand up, trying to peer over the panels to look through the window.

"_What the hell! Stay down, man!"_ Honeydew hissed, grabbing at Xephos.

"_I want to get a better look at it."_ Xephos answered, continuing to stand. He peered over the console, and just outside the window on the left side of the drill the giant stood. It's form was thin, almost frail, and it's skin was grey, of a colour as the rock that covered the Deepcore walls. His eyes, for indeed it seemed to be a he, were small and milky, his features were hard, and head bald. The giant stared at the lights only, not noticing Xephos peeking at it through the window.

"_It's a giant. . ."_ Xephos whispered. _"It's okay though, I think it's just looking at the lights."_

"_Well despite that, I'd still like to get out-"_ Honeydew began to say, but just then the giant grabbed at the machine, ancient hands grasping the metal, bending and rupturing it. It began to rip at the bulk, rending gaps in the shell.

"Ooh, I don't think he likes the light!" Honeydew cried as they slid across the floor.

"If you are ready, I think we should continue!" Peculier suggested loudly as the giant pummeled at the lights.

"Good plan!" Xephos agreed as they made for the stairway. Honeydew stopped to glance back out of the window at the beast, before he quickly ran after the others. Peculier and Xephos opened the door suspecting to be faced with enemies, but the stairway was barren, the monster fled in fear of the wrath of the giant. "Go go go." Xephos said quietly. "We don't want to alert it to our presence."

"Where _do_ we go?" Honeydew asked as they stepped off the stairs, looking up at the hoary legs of the giant, which was shaking the bulk of the drill in silent rage.

"The way lies beyond it." Peculier said quietly. He pointed ahead, where beyond the legs of the giant there did glow a light in the far off darkness, white like all the rest.

"Okay, we need to run for it." Xephos said, giving a start as the machine rocked above them, the wrath of the giant increasing. "We need speed, so don't try to stick together, we'll meet at the light. Keep quiet and for gods' sakes do not look up. Go!" he yelled, before the order could turn into a discussion. He ran into the dark, Honeydew giving a confused, yet quiet wail as he and Peculier disappeared, before he too followed. They ran past the giant's legs, the creature far too occupied with the machine to notice them. In the dark the only thing they could see was the glowing light ahead. Xephos could hear the the loud boots of Honeydew hitting the ground to his right and Peculier's lighter ones to his left. They closed the gap to the light and regrouped, watching from afar as the giant pounded on the machine. One light was already put out, and it now hammered at the other. Far of to the right the other lamps that led them to the walkway twinkled prettily.

"Oh," Peculier panted. "He's a big feller ain't he?"

"Where to now?" asked Xephos.

"Over there." Honeydew pointed. Far off there gleamed another light, this one farther and fainter than the one they stood at had been. They ran for this, and though they were not harried by any mobs, they wished to leave the giant far behind. They ran blind, and became quite divided, but the way was flat, even and safe. They met once more at the light, Honeydew coming first, then Xephos and then Peculier. There again was another light, and so they once again went for it, panting loudly in the dark. When they reached it, in the same order, they were at a wall of rough stone, so high that the ceiling couldn't been seen. Beside the lamp there was a huge hole in the wall, another tunnel, identical to the one they traveled down.

"Great, another ongoing, long, dark, terrible tunnel." Xephos sighed. He stared into it. There were no more lights in this one, and so they set to lighting another torch, their last. "I suppose this tunnel was dug out by the machine we were in." Xephos guessed as they stepped into the mouth and began to walk.

"Ah, of course." Honeydew agreed. "But they dug too deep." he said with a touch of somberness.

To their surprise, the tunnel soon ended. It came to a dead stop in the stone and in the face of the back wall there was a doorway, but not of the stone that the rest of the tunnel was made from.

"Oh, what?" Honeydew said in surprise.

"What is this?" Peculier said, stepping close to the wall, touching the soft creamy stone. "Sandstone? So deep?" He said staring into the doorway apprehensively.

Xephos' blood suddenly went chill. "Sandstone." he said. The others turned to face him. "Who do we know who likes to fuck things up and has a lot to do with sand and sandstone?" he asked.

"Oh fuuuuck. . ." Honeydew said. "Israphel."

"We need to go in." Peculier said. "We don't have much of a choice in that matter."

Xephos blew out a breath. "Oh alright." he said, holding up the torch and charging into the dark doorway of sandstone. A stairway turned right and led them down into a large open room, high ceilinged with pillars, all of it carved in sandstone despite being practically on the bedrock layer.

"What the hell. . ?" Xephos said as the walked into the middle of the room.

"Is this a temple?" Honeydew asked.

"I have never seen anything like this." Peculier said in wonderment. "Is this what the dwarves found? Ancient ruins?"

". . .With railway tracks?" Honeydew said. He pointed over to the far side of the room where a set of tracks were running along the back wall before turning and running along a narrow tunnel. On the tracks sat a curious set of carts, with seats attached to the inside of them.

"What do we do now?" Xephos asked. "There's no other way out of here."

"We've come this far. We must continue." Peculier said, holding himself tall. "Heroes. We must get in the carts." he stated.

"Oh gods, I guess we have to." Xephos sighed.

"There's no other way." Honeydew agreed. They crossed over to the carts, large sturdy vehicles. Honeydew seated himself in the first, Xephos the second, and Peculier the last, leaving two behind.

"How do we start?" asked Xephos asked.

"There's a lever up here." Honeydew answered, voice full of trepidation. "Are you all ready?" he asked.

"Yeah." Xephos swallowed.

"Aye." Peculier replied.

Honeydew breathed out and pulled down on the lever. The tracks under the wheels of the carts slowly lit up with the red glow of live redstone. They lurched into life and began to slide forwards along the track, the mechanism creating a gap between the carts before pulling them along.

"Keep inside the cart!" Honeydew yelled as he was dragged towards the opening in the wall. "Oh fuck oh fuck, I'll see you guys on the other side-!" he yelled as he disappeared around the wall and with a sudden burst of speed from the powered rails was whisked away with a wail. Xephos was then pulled towards the tunnel.

"Peculier, it's been an honor fighting beside you." he said as he neared the speed boost.

"I'm too old for this." Xephos heard him say as he was shot down the tunnel.

If he was yelling his words were whipped away by the speed of the cart. He was barreling down a long and dark tunnel, unable to see anything, and so he tucked himself down into the cart as low as he could fit while it cantered on. The straight path soon turned into a shallow corkscrew spiraling upwards in the dark, with Xephos sitting paralyzed in the cart. A light suddenly appeared around him an as Xephos peered out of the cart he found himself running up a steep slope on a narrow beam of stone surrounded by magma running down the long slope. He looked ahead just to see Honeydew disappear into another doorway, which he sped up to meet, turning to see Peculier appear out of the darkness. When he reached the top the rails evened out and the path was surrounded on either side by rock carvings spewing more magma, lighting the way. Xephos traveled too fast for him to make out any of the forms before he turned another corner. He had just enough time to see the huge pit of magma before him before the cart hit a ramp in the track and he was catapulted into the air. Once again he was unable to tell if he was screaming because of the speed he was traveling, but he landed and then suddenly he was hit by sunlight.

Looking around, Xephos found the rail taking him along a ridge coming off the back of the mountainside that Stoneholm was under. He turned to see the tunnel carved into the face of a cliff as Peculier emerged. Looking back ahead Xephos saw Honeydew far ahead of him, riding his cart while the slope went from shale to grass. and plain. The mountain ranges stood tall and brooding above them, as though disapproving of the sun's evening rays, but for the trio all suddenly seemed well in the world with clean air in their faces and the countryside all about them while they hurtled into the foothills. There then came an odd sensation over the group. A sound, but in such a way that they felt it through the steel of the carts than heard it. Then it grew and they did hear it, a far off high-pitched whining that continued to grow as they raced along the hilltops. It then reached a point when the group covered their ears for the pain the sound caused. Suddenly the noise stopped, but there then came a blinding flash from the east, where they were heading, and as it subsided a spiraling column of blue and white light shot into the sky, untangling at it's tip, tendrils snaring the clouds and sky. They raced towards the beam, unsure of what would await them when they arrived, let alone if it would be too late.

_Author's Notes:_

_This one was a bit late due to editing, but I've got it out. I am planning to get this entire thing current before mid-April, but if it isn't by the 10__th of april 2014__ then there will have to be a three week break because I have a course that will see me away for that amount of time._

_Twitter: /OJvanderBeek_

_Forum Page: ?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek)_

_Episode of this Chapter: watch?v=bNt-vUkFO1w_


	34. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter34

Chapter 34: The Spire.

As their carts raced towards the huge beam of light they saw that it was being shot from within a walled facility, the walls tall and of strong grey stone. The spire of light itself shot some five hundred yards into the air, the blue and white light spiraling slowly and pulsating sickly, the untangled beams at the top writhing in a slow action of some kind of pain. The carts drew them past the right wall of the area, beginning to slow. They passed a huge hole blown in the stone, debris still smoking. While he shot past, Xephos managed to glimpse inside, where he saw a large grey floor, where from a gaping hole in the floor the spire issued forth. Glancing to his right, he saw far off across the plain the metal bulk of a mining machine, the huge drill replaced with a long pipe aimed toward the wall. The rails suddenly flung him around a corner, and as he looked ahead he saw Honeydew's cart come to a stop at a small platform, the walls fifty yards to their left. Xephos' was pulling up as Honeydew stepped out of his own cart and onto the platform. He turned in his seat to see Peculier's cart following after him as his own cart stopped.

"That was amazing." Honeydew said as Xephos pulled himself out.

"What is this?" Xephos asked, looking up at the spire while stretching his legs as Peculier lightly bumped into his cart.

"I think I'm going to be sick." he said as Xephos helped to haul him out.

"This is the only way that Finbar could've come, so he must be here somewhere." Xephos said to Peculier.

"Yeah, but where- Oh shit, he's here!" Honeydew yelled. Xephos turned to where Honeydew was pointing, and saw to his shock the figure of King Finbar floating in midair above the high stone wall, the spire behind him. He stared down at them with a fierce expression, and when he raised his hand there flared within it a ball of red flame.

"Get back!" Xephos cried as he led the trio in vaulting over the carts. As they crouched behind the masses of iron the dwarf king shot towards them a ball of fire, smashing into the side of the carts, the heat melting the panels and turing the carts red. "Shoot him!" Xephos cried to Honeydew, who was already cocking his crossbow. "Another hit and we're dead!" he cried as a fireball flew over their heads and into the earth behind them, scorching a huge crater in the ground. Honeydew poked his head over the still red cart and aimed his crossbow. He took a moment and then shot, his bolt arcing towards Finbar. It struck him in the upper shoulder, and with the impact he flipped backwards into the spire and vanished.

"I hit him!" Honeydew cried, standing. "I hit him!"

"Is he dead?" Xephos asked as Peculier stood up next to him cautiously.

"He fell into the beam of light." Honeydew said.

Xephos stood warily, staring at the spire as it twisted morbidly. "Did that kill him though?" he asked.

"Where's he gone if he's not dead?" Honeydew said stepping around the still melting carts.

"Where the hell are we anyway?" Xephos looked around. The walled area sat atop a large flat hilltop, scrub dotting the hillside in copses. He looked up at the slow twist of the spire. "We just kind of came out of the ground and this thing was here."

"I think I know," Peculier said. "When I talked to Adaephon about how the Wall came down he said the dwarves had a machine that ensured it would never fall. I think that this must be the machine that the dwarves used to reinforce the Wall."

"But wasn't something supposed to be broken? The Wall fell if I remember." Honeydew answered.

"Something _might_ be wrong with it." Xephos said, looking up at the sky. The sun was dipping in the west and the sky was growing dark. "We'll have to get inside an see more of this place."

"There's a gate over here." Honeydew said, pointing ahead to where a heavy set of metal doors were standing inside a doorway in the stone wall.

"Try them." Peculier said as they walked towards the doors over the grassy hilltop. When they reached them Honeydew gave a tug at the handles, and then a mighty push, but either way the door wouldn't budge.

"Is there another way in?" Xephos asked aloud. He snapped his head towards the left end of the wall. "There was a hole in the wall over this way." he remembered, leading the others down the wall. "It looked like something had blown through it."

"Couldn't have been a creeper. They wouldn't put a dent in stone like this." Honeydew said as they turned the corner. They came on the hole, remains still blackened and smoking softly as the sun disappeared and the moon rose.

"Oh dear, it looks as though the dwarves have attacked it." Peculier said.

"By that thing over there?" Xephos pointed down the way to the modified machine, just visible in the twilight. "What the hell is that thing?"

"Shall we go inside?" Honeydew suggested, after which they all stepped through the hole and into the strange yard. The beam shot forth from a huge hole in the ground, rimmed with steel, and extremely deep.

"What kind of power is this?" Peculier asked as the cautiously peered over the edge. The light itself was fifteen yards thick and took on the form of thick strands of energy, each almost physical, real enough to touch.

"What was this place?" Honeydew asked, turing to the walls. "Some kind of fort?"

Xephos stepped away from the hole as a wave of nausea swept over him. He moaned and held his head in his hands as he looked up and saw Honeydew was similarly crippled.

"What's happening?" Peculier asked. "Are you two alright?"

"No, my head hurts." Honeydew moaned, going to his knees.

"Mine too." Xephos said, squinting. "What's happen-" he began when he stumbled backwards into blackness.

"I, Verigan, have made terrible decisions to protect this world, this is one of those decisions." was the first thing that Xephos heard. He awoke to find himself not himself at all, he had no body, and as a spectre he looked upon the bulky form of a man, undoubtably Verigan. He was staring out over a cliff, watching and area of flat country in the sunset. He then turned to face Xephos, through there was nothing to face. He appeared younger than he had in the dream vision that he and Honeydew had experienced aboard Isabel's ship, the man they'd witnessed in the magic book in Verigan's Hold, tall, strong and bearing a huge war-gavel. He spoke again, his voice deep and hearty. "To defend this world from a terrible evil, this machine has been activated. This machine that roused the sand god initially. Now through the Wall it keeps him chained, but should it fail again, the world is surely doomed." There came a gust, and Verigan turned to watch as great dunes of sand began to creep over the countryside, blown by the wind, choking the land. He looked at it sadly, then faced Xephos again. "The facility that you and your friends entered is hidden from view, and the only way in is beneath the Deepcore, which shall remain sealed for ever. But now something has gone wrong, hero. The agents of the dark lord have deactivated the machine, and if the world is not already burning, it is only a matter of time." he gestured to the scene beyond the cliff, where the creeping dunes now covered all in sight, not even the tallest trees poked from the sand. He looked hard at Xephos, yet it seemed that he was staring too at space, a vacancy that stirred behind his eyes. "There is yet one glimmer of hope," Verigan continued. "and if you are pure of heart, then maybe you can do what I could not." between them there came a flickering, and with a crackling like flame there appeared the image of a yellowed piece of paper, floating between them. "You must take this map piece and unite it with the ones that you already have. It will show a way through the Sands, and you must seek out the evil at it's source. Good luck, and goodbye." Verigan sighed finally, and then the whole world began to turn black around Xephos, everything save the map, glowing as it floated before him. He tried to reach for it, the precious prize that they'd sought, but he hand nor body to reach with. The world around him was dark now, and for a few moments he floated with the piece, and then it went out too, and then so did he.

The night air was cool off the mountains, it covered Xephos' skin in goose-pickles as he calmly woke, the Spire twirling idly into the sky above him. He was at first unable to remember why he lay there, on the hard floor around the Spire, but soon he recalled the dream, and he sat up abruptly. The sky was reddening in the east, and morning was coming. He wondered at how long he'd been asleep, when he looked around, wondering where his comrades were. He immediately saw Honeydew lying on the ground across from him, stirring, but of Peculier he saw no sign. Pulling himself up to his feet, Xephos saw that he'd been lying only inches away from the deep hole which the Spire emitted from. He shuddered to think what might have happened if he'd fallen in. Honeydew was sitting up as Xephos called out for Peculier, who came running from the hole in the wall.

"Are you okay?" Xephos asked Honeydew as the dwarf stood up.

"What happened?" he asked. "I had a dream about Verigan-"

"Verigan!?" Peculier exclaimed as he reached them. "What do you mean? You two just suddenly clutched your heads and then passed out for hours! I was guarding the gap so nothing could hurt you."

"Thanks, friend. But Honeydew, did you say you had a dream about Verigan?" Xephos asked.

"Let me fucking guess, you had the same one?"

Xephos nodded. "Did he talk about this place? and some sand washed over some countryside?"

"That's the one. It's like when we were on Isabel's ship." Honeydew said. ". . .But did he give you a map in your dream?" he asked.

Xephos' breath caught. "Yes!" he replied.

"What? The final piece?" Peculier said. "Do you have it? Either of you?" the two quickly searched their pockets and packs, throwing belongings about the floor.

"Did you grab it?" Xephos asked.

"I tried, I couldn't!" Honeydew said exasperatedly, standing up. "Did we fuck it up? Is the world doomed?"

"Wait, wait, wait, maybe it was only a clue. Maybe we are supposed to go to the village that we stood over in the dream? Can you remember what it looked like?"

Honeydew put his hands around his head and turned away, thinking.

"A bit?" he said. "It was pretty bog-standard: Houses, a mill, farms, a smeltery. How are we supposed to find that?" he cried, looking up at the faint stars, their light drowned out by the glow of the Spire. He turned his head to the ground and saw something, stopping him in his step.

Xephos wrung his hands and began to pack their things back into their bags. "We don't have much choice, we have to try and find this place. Now, it looked warmer than where we are now, so it'll be more towards the south-"

"Xephos," Honeydew said, picking up the yellowed map fragment, staring at it with a nervousness bordering of fear. "I have in my hands a piece of paper. . ."

"Is that what I think it is. . ?" Peculier said quietly, in awe.

Xephos turned, and froze when he saw the what Honeydew held. "Fantastic!" he cried. "That's the final piece, we don't need to find them any more." Honeydew handed Peculier the map piece.

"But, Peculier you don't know what we both saw in the dream. It's bad news." Xephos said, recovering from his euphoria.

"What is it?" Peculier asked.

"This machine," Xephos tapped his foot onto the ground. "Was built to allow the Wall to keep the sands back, but Finbar has sabotaged it, and now there's nothing keeping the sand at bay save the lone strength of the Wall itself. I'd guess that when the Wall was broken when we were at Verigan's Hold Finbar was testing how much it would weaken the Wall."

"So what happened there is now happening along the entire Wall?" Honeydew asked, swallowing.

". . .Yeah. . ." Xephos sighed.

"That is bad news. Very bad indeed." Peculier said grimly. He looked up suddenly. "We should return to Adaephon. He is right by the Wall itself. He might be in danger and we need him to look at the map."

"What are we going to do about the machine, though?" Honeydew asked. "And where do we go to reach the Wall anyway?"

"I do not know the exact way to the Wall," Peculier said. "But I know what is wrong with the machine. When you two were unconscious I looked around and found a place that looked like it'd been tampered with. I didn't understand it at all though."

Honeydew, the most technologically adept stepped forwards.

"Show it to me." he demanded. Peculier nodded and led them to the eastern wall where a bunker was built into the rock. He showed them into the room full of more complex machinery, like the kind of the Precursors, but it looked to be canibalised or jury-rigged for a different purpose by Verigan's workers. Peculier showed them where a panel had been ripped from the wall, where among wires there was an empty port of some kind for a device. "Let me see this. . ." Honeydew stepped towards it.

"Do you know what it is?" Xephos asked.

"Oh yeah, easily. A high-powered redstone torch is meant to go in this socket, a charge it's called."

"Can you fix it?" Peculier said.

"All we need is another charge to put in it and we're golden, but unless we can find the one that Finbar took we're fucked, because those things are pretty rare to find around the place randomly."

"Gods _damn it!"_ Xephos yelled, kicking the door.

"Wait," Peculier said suddenly. "what about that machine of Finbar's that was outside the walls? Could that have a charge in it?"

Honeydew looked up suddenly, turning to Peculier. "It could," he said. "I don't know much about that kind of machinery, but I'd say that there would be one in there somewhere."

"What are we standing about for, then?!" Xephos yelled, running outside. "Come on! Every second is another that the Sands are spreading!"

"Okey dokie!" Honeydew said as they ran out of the hole and into the pre-morning darkness.

"We may have to defend ourselves out here," Xephos said as he slowed, eyes scanning the grassy hilltop for any mobs. "be ready to attack if need be."

They continued with their hands at the ready to draw their swords, but they met nothing as they stumbled towards the machine, the massive pipe pointing forwards like an arrow ready to fire.

"This is Finbar's massive machine thing." Xephos said as they stood at the foot of one of it's huge treads. "What is that pipe for? Did they shoot an explosive bolt out of it or something?"

"Let's focus on getting the charge, huh?" Honeydew said, reminding Xephos. They climbed up the caterpillar treads like a ladder and walked along the top to the door located in the side of the hull, as it had been with the one in the Deepcore. As he neared the open door, Xephos saw something tall and wiry move behind the tank, and made to look at it when he saw out of the corner of his eyes that it's long eye slits glowed purple, and the tall human-ish shape was surrounded by an aura of faint purple light. He turned his back on the creature quickly, facing Honeydew.

"Don't look behind me. There's something over there that I think is an enderman." he said hurriedly.

"Avert your eyes!" Peculier hissed, looking towards the wall.

"What!?" Honeydew said. "Endermen are supposed to have died out ages ago, what could one be doing here?"

"Well with Israphel fucking shit up left right and center, it's not too surprising that some of the Old Creatures are coming back! Just don't look directly at it." Xephos said. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he heard the sound of footsteps through long grass and the strange hiccup-like call of the enderman behind him. He recalled Honeydew telling him of the stories of endermen stealing up children who didn't behave that he had been told as a child to get him to stop yelling. From the contents of the tales, Xephos was not surprised that they worked. "If we don't look at it, it won't attack us." he recalled.

"Just get inside." Honeydew said. Xephos pushed through the door and into the machine, where they climbed the stairs and into a room similar to the one that they hid in when in the Deepcore.

"Do you know where you can find one of these charges?" Xephos asked to Honeydew.

"I have some idea of where to start." the dwarf answered, drawing his short-sword. He slid the blade between the floor panels and pried the metal sheets up out of the ground.

"If there are endermen coming back, the what else could be returning?" Xephos asked.

"Witches, live pigmen, and -gods forbid- the Enderdragon itself." Peculier said as Honeydew threw the panel from the center of the floor to the side and knelt over the gap.

"Find anything?" Xephos asked.

"Uh, _yeah."_ Honeydew said with a laugh. Xephos and Peculier stepped around the hole he knelt above. Just below them were an array of eight huge glass cases of redstone set into a circuit of complex mechanisms.

"This is the power supply of the machine?" Xephos asked.

". . .yeah. . ." Honeydew answered.

"Are you okay?" Xephos said.

"Sorry," Honeydew shook himself. "It's just. . .this is more power changes than I've ever seen in one place. It could power most of Dwergholm's machines permanently!"

"These Precursor types seem to know their game when it comes to make machines."

"I'll say."

"We can use these to repair the spire?" Xephos asked, recalling their intentions.

"Yes, I'll just grab one." Honeydew bent over the hole and grabbed one of the eight charges, the case that contained the redstone the size of a large jug, pulled it from the socket and stood up, holding it in both hands. "We got it." Honeydew said.

"We have power, now." Peculier sighed. "Now let's get back to the machine and repair it."

"Yes, let's go." Xephos agreed. "Keep an eye out for endermen -or rather don't." he added as he followed Honeydew out of the door.

"It's dawn!" Honeydew said as they climbed carefully down the treads. In the east, the sun was rising over the far hilltops, lightening the landscape. "Ah, it's a beautiful day to save the world, lads." he said as they ran across the hilltop and back towards the hole in the wall.

"Hurry, put it in the slot!" Xephos said as they ran into the bunker.

"Okay. . ." Honeydew said as he carefully lowered the plug at the base of the charge into the socket. "It's powered!" he exclaimed as it settled in. There came a sudden humming from outside the bunker from the spire. The three rushed outside and saw that the awkward rotation of the solidified light was beginning to speed up. It continued until the spire was now whirling like a cyclone, the different shades of white through to blue blending to one shaft of fizzling brilliant energy.

"It's alive once more!" Peculier cried.

"Oh! Look over here!" Xephos said, running to the wall beside the bunker, where through a long window they could see a glass covered pipe filled with redstone gizmos beginning to flicker into life as the pipe stretched south down through the hills. "That probably leads back to the Wall."

"This is good! We saved the day!" Honeydew yelled in triumph.

"Hang on, it might not be." Xephos said with a tone of melancholy. "Remember what Verigan said about it being turned off already made it too late? We may have only stopped the Wall from being destroyed more than it already was, but we don't know if there was any more to save in the first place. We may be too late."

"Well that's a downer." Honeydew grumbled angrily.

"Wait, what is that?" Peculier said.

"What do you mean?" Honeydew asked.

"Up there, there's some kind of. . .anomaly on the top of the spire." he pointed to the top of the pillar of light, where at it's tip, at the center of the now thrashing tendrils, there sat a square frame of black rock, the purple light that filled it barely distinguishable in the light of the spire.

"That must be, a _portal?_ Up the top?" Xephos squinted.

"Oh my gods it is." Honeydew agreed. "That's a portal up there."

"Do you think that's where Finbar went after you shot him into the beam?"

"That's where he must've escaped through." Honeydew nodded. "So I guess that means that the spire doesn't hurt you? It kind of just lifts you up?"

"Maybe." Xephos said flatly. "Do we go up?"

"It must be the reason that the generator failed." Peculier said. "We must climb the Spire!"

"But how will we get back down -_oh shit!"_ Honeydew cried as Peculier suddenly jumped into the beam. He floated in the light a moment and then was swept up towards the top, spiraling around the beam.

"We have to follow him." Xephos said, watching as Peculier climbed. "We can enter it and destroy it from the other side, then find another portal out into the regular world."

"It's a long way up." Honeydew said, staring at Peculier, who was halfway to the portal. Xephos patted him on the shoulder and staring at the whirling mass of light he leapt into it. He was immediately gripped with a warm sensation and then weightlessness before he was pulled into the rapid upward spiral. Such was the speed that Xephos was only able to squint as he flew, and even so all he saw was the blue-white glow of the spire. The speed maintained and then it began to slow, before Xephos came to a stop. He was floating at the top of the spire, the tendrils that unwound from it's length thrashing about the portal that stood stationary in the center of the beam. From the hight, the land for miles around could be viewed, Xephos saw clearly the range where Stoneholm lay beneath, and to the far south one could faintly see the Wall on the horizon, rising above the landscape.

Knight Peculier floated near the entrance of the portal, staring at it's rippling purple face. He seemed in a trance as Xephos tired to maneuver himself over to him by leaning against the energy keeping him erect. Honeydew suddenly appeared from the ground, his scream abruptly cutting off as he realised he'd come to rest.

"Peculier, are you okay?" Xephos asked.

"A portal. . ." he whispered, still staring. He shook his head, threw his helm on and lunged at the light inside the portal. "Daisy, I'm coming!" he cried as he disappeared.

"Oh shit, he's gone!" Xephos yelled. "Quick! Into the portal!" Xephos said as he pushed Honeydew towards the obsidian. They hadn't any time to think what may await on the other side before they were passing side by side through the fissure in reality.

The feeling of gravity under their feet again caused Honeydew and Xephos to stumble as they fell from the frame onto a hard metal floor. As they stood up behind Peculier they saw they were within a small room, very similar to the one that they found through the portal below Barbeque Bay, with white lights and glowing green screens everywhere. Knight Peculier was standing immobile in front of them, sword drawn and facing the short bent figure of King Finbar, who stood with a wall of green screens behind him, casting a sinister light upon him as he held a hand to his shoulder, a bloody bolt on the ground before him. The king gave a racketing laugh, his voice cascading through the room.

"You are too late." he grinned, voice harsh, like a scraping of schist down a mountainside.

"What the hell. . ." Xephos gasped.

"No, it _cannot _be!" Peculier said. "What have you done!?"

"You may have repaired the Spire, but the Wall has already fallen. Our master has awakened once again!" Finbar roared. "You are _too late!"_

"_No!" _Peculier yelled in return. He took a step forward and raised his sword. Finbar made no move. "What was it you did with my father? My mother?" he leaned forward, eyes full of savage wrath. _"Where is Daisy?" _Peculier lunged at Finbar, but Honeydew lashed out and grabbed the old knight by his shoulders, wrestling him back.

"We can't kill him yet!" he said. "We need him to answer our questions!"

"Soon," Finbar laughed, staring at Peculier, trying to struggle free of Honeydew's grip. "soon, the dark lord will climb free of the Sands. And the world will fall under our shadow!"

"_Where. Is. __**Daisy!**__"_ Peculier bellowed, still struggling with Honeydew. _"You stole her away! What did you do with her!?"_

Xephos watched as Finbar stared evenly at Peculier and then gave another laugh, before he was quiet and leaned forward. "You have no purpose here. And as for the girl, she shall make a fitting meal for our god. Now begone!" he hollered and in the next instant a fireball was in his clawed hand.

"_Move!"_ Xephos yelled as the dwarf king threw the orb of flame. He threw himself to the right as Honeydew hauled Peculier to the ground to the left. The fireball streaked past them, hot and angry it flew, vanishing through the portal that the three had stood before, the light vanishing with it. His guard dropped, Peculier scrabbled free of Honeydew and threw himself before Finbar.

"_**Monster!"**_ he yelled and stabbed forward, his sword's thin blade piercing Finbar's neck through his beard. Blood reddened Finbar's beard as Peculier pushed forwards until the blade came out through the back of his neck and pinned him to the now broken screen behind him. Peculier stepped away, watching as the dwarf clutched at the sword through his neck, crimson blood pouring down his neck. The knight was cast in the terrible light of the screens while he watched the enemy's pawn drown in his own undead blood, and for that moment Xephos and Honeydew saw him as another man, one dark and dread. Finbar finally stopped grasping, and his hands fell away from the handle and to his blood soaked sides, his head lying to the side.

"Wow. . ." Honeydew said quietly as Peculier walked up to the body. He placed his boot upon his chest and tore his sword from Finbar's neck, his body falling to the floor where it lay in it's own blood.

"Jebus." Xephos whispered as Peculier bent and cut Finbar's long grey beard from his chin, the highest form of disrespect to be committed on a dead dwarf. Peculier stood and did not turn to face his comrades. He was bathed in the green light of the screens as he scowled behind his corinthian, shaking his head dismissively. "Peculier!" Xephos exclaimed.

"We are too late." he scowled. "It is done-" he said, voice cracking into a sob.

"It's not!" Xephos said, voice as shaken as he was by the news.

"It's never too late." Honeydew added.

"The evil that my grandfather and father died to seal away is now loose once again." Peculier said, voice on the verge of tears as he turned to them, face now appearing as aged as it had been when they first met him, his youth once more taken from him. "I have failed." he said flatly, throwing his hands up. "I have failed!"

"We still have a Daisy to save!" Honeydew suggested.

"Oh what use is it!?" he suddenly yelled. "Did you not hear? The Wall has fallen. All hope is lost for us. It doesn't matter now! Better to die a quick death by the butcher's knife than starving in the Sands."

Xephos drew himself up. "You can't make that decision for her." he said with a level tone, meeting Peculier's now angry eyes. "And besides, there is still hope. The map. It's supposed to show how to stop Israphel. If we follow it then we can stop the sand from spreading. So when you say that all is lost, when you begin to pack a sad, _don't you for one second begin to loose hope, because I've spent too long running after these fucking map pieces for this to be the fucking end!" _Xephos grabbed Peculier's helmet and wrested it from his head, shoving it into his hands. _"Get your shit together and let's finish this!"_ All were silent for long moments. Xephos stepped back, glaring at Peculier, who stared down at his helm while Honeydew merely stood to the side, looking shocked.

"Not long." Peculier said quietly. He looked up and he was suddenly even more youthful than before, nearer Xephos' own age than that of his father's. "We will not have very long. But it will have to be enough. Enough to cross half the word with nothing but our swords and a accursed broken map? Aye. It'll have to be." he looked down at Finbar's body and then his sword. "I hold my father's sword. He gave his life for this cause. I cannot merely give up. Thank you." he looked at Xephos at the last words.

"Uh, good speeches guys, but where exactly do we go?" Honeydew said. "The portal is out."

"This place, there must be other portals," Peculier looked around, his eyes falling on a hatch set into the ground by one of the walls. "maybe there will be one that will take us somewhere that I recognise." he said as he twisted the hatch open. It opened into a long dark pipe descending into the metal hulk. "Well, what are we waiting for?" Peculier said, starting down the ladder with the fervor of a man on a quest.

Xephos and Honeydew watched him disappear before glancing a each other. Honeydew gave a wide grin. "Yeeees!" he rumbled, starting for the hatch.

_Author's Notes:_

This chapter was brought to you by **bold letters** and _italics. _But in all seriousness, I loved this episode. It may not have been intentional of the episode writers, but when viewing it I found Peculier's actions in the final minutes very outside of his regular attitude, showing how desperate he was. I hope that I managed to convey that with his butchering of Finbar. Also, we are nearing the end of this project (that is, until the series is updated.)(I think we have less than ten episodes to go?) and after which I will take a very lengthy break before I maybe write some short side-stories, which should be fun (I'm thinking a prequel too.).

Twitter: /OJvanderBeek

Forum Page: ?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek)

This chapter's episode: watch?v=8KFvN2kOGpM


	35. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter35

Chapter 35: Lastwatch Hold

The three adventurers descended the shaft in near darkness, the sweltering heat in the claustrophobic pipe made their sweat slick the iron rungs of the ladder they climbed. The way was long, but eventually Peculier called that he had reached the bottom, and Honeydew and Xephos soon were standing beside him at the end of a long iron corridor, a huge window in place of the end wall behind them.

"This place, this world beyond. . .it is not what I expected." Peculier said as he looked down the corridor, a long and dark tunnel. Sweat glistened on his face behind his corinthian as he stared ahead. "Corridors of metal? Strange machines?"

"No, it's not. I expected this:" Honeydew pointed to the window. They looked through the thick glass and out into the world beyond, a chaotic cavern of red rock, magma-falls running off the edge of cliffs and into a huge lake of molten rock that the corridor seemed to be suspended over.

"What kind of place is this?" Peculier asked.

Xephos turned away from the window and led the way down the corridor. "We had a theory that Israphel and his minions were using these portals as a way to get around the Overworld quickly, so this place might be a facility that he keeps the portals in." he said.

They followed the hallway at a brisk pace, becoming increasingly damp due to the heat. The way soon became a crossroads between another corridor, and the three would have been at a loss as to which way to take if the left and right had not been blocked by a cave in and a stream of magma melting through the ceiling and floor respectively. They went straight on, their footfalls echoing before and behind them as Honeydew led the way, his dwarven eyes reading the dark corridor as they followed it.

"There's a room ahead." he announced. They group slowed warily, hands hovering above their weapons. The room that they entered was circular, a large open wall to the left was bare to the heat of the Nether, and the floor was covered in a light dusting of sand which seemed to stem from an empty portal of obsidian in the right wall.

"Oh my gods, there's a portal in here." Honeydew said as the others stepped into the room, the only light coming from the opening in the wall.

"Ah ha!" Peculier cried.

"It's not on, but it does seem to be intact." Xephos said, examining the frame. He stood and went to the gap in the wall where Honeydew was stood. "What's out here?" he asked.

"It's just. . .the Nether." Honeydew said. They looked out over the magma lake that the facility hung from the carven ceiling above. On a cliff across the lake there sat a huge cube of iron, likely another building, and spanning the gap between it and where the opening they stood in was, there was an immense chain, each link the size of a large wagon and cast black.

"Well, there's nothing to lose." Peculier sighed from across the room. "Dwarf, can you light it?" he asked.

"I can. I have my flint and tinder here. I haven't used them in a while." he said as he strode across to the portal. He reached down to the two pouches hanging from his belt above either hip. He withdrew from them his coveted flint and bryne-steel tinder. He took a moment to turn the tinder in his fingers, admiring the form of a dragon it was cast in. Taking the tinder in one hand, he pinched the flint between thumb and forefinger and standing just out of the portal frame struck the two together. The power of the bryne-steel tinder sent forth a gout of sparks into the frame, where they hit the bottom of it, and suddenly a curtain of purple light was conjured before them.

"I hope this wasn't a bad idea." Honeydew said as he stared uneasily at the portal.

"Let's see where this leads." Peculier stepped forwards.

"I guess it can't be any worse than this." Xephos said.

Honeydew moaned. "You say that. . ." he said.

"Alright then." Peculier breathed. He started for the portal. "Follow me!" he cried as he walked calmly through.

"Through we go." Honeydew smiled wanly as he followed Peculier, Xephos close behind.

They emerged into a small crater, the portal sitting in the center of it with sand all around, the sky dark above them as the moon stared down.

"Where is this?" Xephos asked as he climbed out of the crater. Peculier was already standing at the top.

"Some kind of harsh deserted desert landscape." Honeydew stated as he and Xephos stood beside Peculier.

"Where are we? Beyond the Wall?" Peculier wondered.

"Probably." Xephos said. Sand reached for miles all around, and spattered in copses around the portal were spindly forms of sandstone, petrified trees, bare of any leaf. "There's weird sandy trees all around the place. Where the heck are we? Can your eyes see anything, Honeydew?" Xephos asked.

". . .Yeah, there's something over there." Honeydew said. He pointed left of the portal, where between two groups of sandstone trees some large grey structure sat on the flat dunes. "It looks like there's a flag." he said, starting for it. They walked with caution across the sand in the light of the moon, passing between the two copses and towards the mass of crumbling grey stone. "Is it ruins?" Honeydew asked as they neared. They approached a broken wall, the stumps of stone towers and a keep behind it. From the top of the wall there hung a banner, stirring in the wind. On it was the crimson cross of the Templars, bleached by the sun and torn woefully. Below it a set of badly corroded bronze plaques were bolted to the wall, identical to the ones outside Verigan's Hold.

"Oh no. . ." Peculier gasped at the sight of the flag.

"_What."_ Honeydew said. "We're not at Verigan's Hold are we!?" he cried.

"No, wait." Xephos said as he pulled from his pocket his pebble of glowstone. He held the light over the shadowed signs, and read them. "It's not Verigan's." he sighed. "It says something else; Lastwatch Hold."

"Lastwatch? So it's another hold." Honeydew said, turning to Peculier. "Are there are a series of holds? Did this one fall?" he asked.

"Lastwatch." Peculier asked. "It cannot be!" he yelled.

"Wait, if this is a castle on the Wall, where's the Wall?" Xephos said as he looked beyond the wall for the huge in a landscape totally flat save for the petrified trees. "Oh shit, has it fallen here already?"

"No," Peculier said firmly. "Lastwatch was the only Wall Bastion to exist beyond the Wall rather than behind it. It served as a dispatch for scouting parties into the sands."

"So the Wall is that way?" Xephos said, turning and looking away from the flag. "Oh, I see the Wall there, just over the treetops!" he said as he saw the merlons jutting over the branches of the sandstone trees, the Wall itself far distant.

"It's intact then?" Peculier asked.

"It looks to be so." Xephos nodded. "Oh gods, there's a massive mountain of sand up against it though." he said. Through the gaps in the trees saw in the distance a huge dune rising up to the top of the Wall, rearing like a beast, frozen in time.

"Amazing, we have traveled a thousand miles in only a few moments." Peculier sighed as he stared towards the Wall. "Looks like were were too late to stop the sand getting past the Wall here."

"Are you okay, Peculier?" Xephos asked.

Peculier stared at the Wall for a moment, then turned to face Xephos. "I came here once. Long ago." he said.

"Oh, the memories." Honeydew said.

The old man looked up at the flag, lit by the light of the moon. He shrugged off the cold air of the desert night, then looked back at the Wall. "Lastwatch was one of the most important Wall Bastions. I cannot know if or when it fell, nor if it was still in use, or abandoned like so many other of the Bastions. But now the whole castle is beneath our feet. If we do not stop Israphel, the whole world will look like this, millions will suffocate to death under the sand." he said, taking a seat at the foot of the wall bearing the flag. "Heroes, I must rest a moment, but I shall tell you my story of what took place after I left you at Mistral and then again after we saved the Wall." he breathed out deeply, removed his helmet and stared into space. Xephos and Honeydew sat too upon the coarse sand in the moonlight as Peculier began his tale. "You two have done what I could not, you have united the four map fragments."

"Well, we had some help along the way." Honeydew said as Xephos shushed him into silence.

Peculier continued.

"I am sorry for keeping this story from you, and you deserve to know it. Ever since Daisy was taken from me that night in Terrorvale months ago I have been different. My heart is like shards of glass in my chest, but I now have a new strength, and also an understanding. But in order for me to tell this tale in full, I must start at the beginning."

My sister Isabella and I never knew our parents. Not really. Out father was a City Guard in Mistral, but we lived away from the city and he was often away from our home defending the town. But our mother I am only able to remember in flashes; dark-haired, kind, and very loving. But it was on one fateful night in out coastal home that everything changed."

I was only of four years old, and all I can remember is driving rain, lightning and a terrible pale face. He took our mother that night, took her into whatever dark place he inhabits. Soon after my father left us too. I can only assume that he tracked Israphel back to the portal that we found below Mistral, and there went after him, destroying the portal from the other side."

We were left in the care of Adaephon, but his duties as a Templar were too trying on him, and he entrusted us to the care of Gwendolyn Bacon, or as you know her, Granny Bacon. She raised my sister and I well, but I was forever haunted by the image of the pale face that I saw in our home the night our mother was taken. I vowed to find out what had happened to our parents, and I traveled the length of the Wall, asking at each of the seven great Wall Bastions, finding nothing, but eventually learning the story of Verigan Antioch, and his sacrifice to save the world, and his son Karpath, who vanished after setting up the Templars."

Xephos gave a start when he recalled the vision they'd had aboard Isabel's ship, in which Verigan had said that Peculier was his descendant. He remembered he and Honeydew's decision to remain quite about it, and hoped that the dwarf remembered it too.

"The years passed and the trail of my father, already cold, grew frigid. Here was the time that I began to age unnaturally, and was held in the grip of paralysing nightmares. I found myself growing weaker and weaker. Finally, weary, old beyond my time and barely able to wield a sword, I fled to the town of Terrorvale to live out the rest of my short days as a lowly innkeep. There, unexpectedly, my life turned around for the first time. I fell in love with a young blacksmith, and for a time the nights were not as cold."

But it appeared that I was unable to escape my past, and Israphel was not done taking the ones I loved from me. Before long people started disappearing from the tiny town, many of my friends were among them. The reverend, who we now know was in the service of Israphel, named his son after his master, and the child vanished soon after. The nightmares returned soon after too, worse then ever, and I started to loose hours of my time, sometimes days, to my confusion. Daisy grew distant from me, and I began to grow paranoid that I was being controlled by _him,_ and was responsible for the disappearances. I then made the most cowardly decision I've ever made. To end my miserable life. I brewed a potent poison, and wandered outside of the town to kill myself. But before I could drink it, you two arrived."

"Woah, _what!?" _Honeydew cried. "You were about to poison yourself!? I thought that you just hung out by the entrance to greet people! What the hell!"

"You saved my life by appearing when you did. Remember I took you back to my inn? Well, at first I though to poison the fermented milk I gave you, so frantic was my paranoia. But, I realised that your hearts were too pure to have been tainted by the power of the pale faced man. Instead, I helped you as I could to rid Terrorvale of the corruption. But just as my spirit was returning, something so terrible happened that my heart shattered like glass. Daisy. . .was gone." he sighed. "He had taken her, just as he had taken my mother. It was then that I understood. I understood everything. I cast away the poison and followed after her. Until then I had hated my father for abandoning us, but now I felt as he had when our mother was taken. He too had lost the love of his life to the darkness. Since then I have been different, I have understood what had driven my father to search for her, and what is worth dying for."

We chased Israphel through the tunnels below Terrorvale to the portal near your home, but at our arrival, you two were put to sleep and before my eyes fell through a fissure in space to a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Unable to follow either you or Israphel through the portal, I sought the help of Lysander in Mistral City. I convinced him to use his airship to help us to scour the land in search of you. We had no luck, but then the freighter airship the _Militans _returned to Mistral, and brought news of a tiny island in the South-East Seas where it'd seen two figures waving up at them, begging for help. I pressed them for descriptions, and was sure that this was you two that were being described. Lysander and I set out in the _Celaeno_ to rescue you, crossing over the Sands, where we found you on that tiny island beyond the shores where the ocean meets the desert. You will remember the storm that blew us off course and around Mistral, where we crashed near your home, recently destroyed."

I then guided you on our journey to Mistral City, but my weakness returned on the journey, and you saved my life a second time by seeking out the wizard Fumblemore for a potion that would return my strength. You risked your lives and dignity to gather the ingredients, and shamed me for my cowardice. But there it did not end, for you helped me to recover my father's blade, venturing deep into the catacombs under Mistral, where we found the portal that he had entered and destroyed. When we uncovered my father's note, I felt great sadness, but also immense purpose. My father was dead, but I could avenge him by seeking out the portals of Israphel and shut them down, lest their taint spread to all that is good in this world."

I knew then that I must seek out Adaephon, and that is when I left you, amidst the burning ruins of Mistral. I do not know what it was that you found in the crumbling ruin of the Old Castle, save one thing, a fatal blow to the Enemy's plan: the first piece of the strange map. I sought out Adaephon at Verigan's Hold, but the news was little better than the sight of Mistral City burning; it was under siege by the undead! I fought alongside Adaephon, but in hearing that the Wall had been breached, set off and left instructions with him to send you after me when he found you. The Wall was damaged badly, and I had barely managed to make sense of how it happened when I was beset upon by creatures of the night. I took refuge in an abandoned guard tower to tend to my wounds while awaiting your return. I shan't recall the Battle of the Breach, for I am sure that you remember it well."

After we parted ways again, while you sought additional pieces of the map, I traveled to Icaria, in search of Fumblemore, who'd taken up residence there after the Fire of Mistral. He was the only one who was old enough to remember the construction of the Wall, and therefore may be able to enlighten me to how it may have fallen. Fortunately he was in one piece after the Fire, though little to say for hie tower, which he managed to spirit away from the city, albeit upside-down. He told me of the pact that Verigan made with the dwarves of Stoneholm. I traveled there immediately, but was captured by the corrupted dwarves."

"Good effort." Honeydew chuckled.

"They held me for weeks before you two arrived, but I remained vigilant, and at long last you two found me." Peculier said with an air of finality. "And yes, we may have defeated Finbar, but now that Wall has fallen we need to pull this weed out by it's roots. But entering the desert here will do us no good. We need supplies; food and water, and also Adaephon, to restore the map."

"We need to get to Verigan's then." Xephos said with a yawn. "I'm sorry, but if we don't move soon, I'll fall asleep. All that time sleeping properly in Skyhold has ruined my ability to stay awake for ungodly times on end."

"Come then, we must return through the portal and find another." Peculier said. His speech over, he stood, put on his helmet and began for the portal, purple light glowing across the plain of sand. "What are you waiting for? The world isn't going to save itself!" he called. Honeydew and Xephos leapt to their feet and raced after Peculier, the banner of the Templars flapping from the fallen walls of Lastwatch as they leapt back through the portal, the icy eye of the moon staring down.

_Author's Notes:_

This one is really short due to the majority of the episode being a massive monolog by Peculier in the desert, but as compensation the next two episodes are 24 & 32 minutes each, so they'll be properly long.

Twitter: /OJvanderBeek

Forum Page: ?57102-Shadow-of-Israphel-Fanfiction-Mother-Thread-(O-J-van-der-Beek)

This Chapter's Episode: watch?v=AkpQN8JXY8g


	36. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter36

Chapter 36: The Last Letter.

Xephos' feet fell back onto the hard metal floor as he stepped through the portal. He emerged and the cool air of the desert night was replaced by the heated breath of the nether. Sweat was breaking upon his brow as he stepped away from the portal to Knight Peculier's side as Honeydew stepped from the purple surface of the gateway. The heat recognised, Xephos cast about the room that they'd stepped into, only to find it was not the same as the one they'd left behind when going through the portal before.

Two of the passages that had stood open were now blocked. The left, which they'd come through prior, was now sealed by a thick sheet of magma that seemed to be melting through the passage ceiling and through the floor, loops of the liquid spilling across the floor, harding to a deep red crust. The large opening that had stood across from the portal had once dropped away into the huge cavern of the Nether, a gargantuan chain had once spread from it across a seething lake of magma to another stronghold of iron set into the high cave walls. Now the opening was filled with sand, which plugged it tight, and no way through could be found.

"Is this the same place that we were in last time?" Xephos asked as he stared around the dim room, lit only by the portal and gout of molten rock. The only way out of the room seemed to be a passage to the right of the portal.

"The ways are blocked." Peculier said.

"What could have caused this?" Honeydew said, hand on his sword pommel as though in suspicion that they may be ambushed.

"I don't know." Xephos answered flatly. He stepped cautiously over towards the right passage. "There is a way over here." Xephos was suddenly thrown into the mound of sand by an explosion that rocked the entire room. Honeydew cried out as he fell to the floor, and then the motion stopped.

"I think that's what may have caused the ways to be blocked." Honeydew exclaimed. "What did that?" as he spoke another smaller tremor rocked the facility, though not enough to send them to the floor.

"We need to find a way out of here!" Xephos yelled.

"This place is becoming unstable!" Peculier cried out, starting for the passage before Xephos. "We must find another portal, quickly!"

"Down here." Xephos called to Honeydew as he led the way down the dimly lit corridor, their pace brisk yet cautious in anticipation of another blast rocking the passageway. "Look here," he said, stopping before a hole in the floor, a ladder of iron rungs leading down the metal shaft's length. "there's a sign. It says: "_Tube access to supply rail._"."

"Does the passage go on?" Honeydew asked from the rear.

"No." Xephos said as he was halfway inside the shaft. "Looks like this is the only way forward." the others followed Xephos down the claustrophobic ladder, heat baking them as they descended. "It looks like there's a railway below!" Xephos called up as he looked below him where from the foot of the shaft he could see the edge of a rail. A violent force then seized the earth again and shook them within the shaft, loud rumblings crashing about them as the trio clung white-knuckled to the ladder until the madness subsided, where they made progress all the more quickly and cautiously. Xephos reached the floor, hands slick with sweat from the heat. He looked up and down the long passage he stood in. A narrow railway ran along it in both directions, the left ended after twenty yards in a pile of rubble that had crashed through the ceiling, whereas the right stretched on for seemingly an eternity, the length lit by glowstone lamps set into the walls. Peculier stepped off the ladder behind Xephos, and was followed by Honeydew soon after, both looking shaken. Xephos pondered for a moment what he looked like, so long he'd been without an examination of his reflection.

"Only one way to go. Come along." Peculier said in a voice so flat it was equal parts mystifying and terrifying, for here was a man who'd devoted his entire existence and every iota of it to his cause, a crusade that would not be easily quelled. Peculier led the way along the railway, a single occasional explosion sent them careening into the right wall with a great sound. The monotony of the passage soon ended in what appeared to be a station aside the railway, the rail split into a loading track where half a dozen carts sat idle on the rail, untoppled by the explosions. Mounted on the wall next to the station another sign was mounted to the solid metal. Peculier stood reading it as Xephos spoke it's words aloud.

""_Freight Rail to NCS-88 Roller-coaster Access Chamber_"." he read.

"Roller-coaster? What?" Honeydew said, perplexed.

"Do you have any idea what this could mean?" Xephos asked Peculier. He stood staring at the rail-carts, his face unreadable.

"I only know of one roller-coaster." he said. "And if as I suspect there is a portal that will take us there, we shall be in luck indeed."

Xephos racked his memory, and was then able to recall at one time seeing a roller-coaster of wood as he and Honeydew had stumbled into the Carnivale del Banjo the first time. "Do you mean the one outside Verigan's Hold?" he said. "At the Carnival?" Peculier looked at him with dark eyes and looked as though he meant to speak when a small tremor shook the passage, causing the carts to rattle against each other.

"Get in the carts." he said. "Let's go. We can use them to travel the rails faster." he stepped over to where the loading rails met the main rail. A long lever jutted from the floor beside the junction. Peculier grasped this and heaved at it, where with a whirring sound the rails all along the passageway lit up with the dull red glow of redstone machinery. "These powered rails will get us there faster than we can run." Peculier said. Neither Xephos found himself unwilling to get into the carts with the possibility of colliding with and debris further down the track, when from behind them the became aware of a distant rumbling. The floor began to shake as the explosions grew nearer, coming from down the railway and growing in power as they charged towards them, echoing down the metal tunnel.

"Get in the carts." Xephos said as they ground began to buck. "Hurry!" he yelled running to the foremost cart, pushing it out of the loading rail and vaulting into it as the redstone rails suddenly swept him away. Landing lightly inside the cart, Xephos turned to see Peculier and Honeydew following his example, the passage behind them shaking more violently as their carts outran the explosions. Turning to face the front of the cart, he faced the passage, warm air flying through his dense hair as the hurtled along at the speed of a stallion. The weight of the cart stopped it from being thrown from the rails when a quake suddenly erupted, in spite of rocking heavily from side to side. The lights flashed by undaunted as Xephos sat crouched in the speeding cart, hurtling towards what would hopefully take them from this realm of heat and iron. Looking back to see that Peculier and Honeydew were keeping up, Xephos turned back to the front just as the floor gave away beneath him. Just as he was about to cry out as he fell into the chasm of molten rock far below, he saw that while the floor had given away the rails still stretched over the gap, equalling some ten yards at most. He hardly had time to comprehend this and hear Peculier's cries of surprise when the track suddenly veered around a bend to the right, then turning left again. Xephos squinted against the wind in his face and saw ahead of him a great hole had been burned through ceiling and floor of the tunnel, falling away into the depths below. Xephos didn't have time to do anything before he saw that the rail had been burned away with it, and he sped over the edge of the gaping hole in the floor. His fall was brief, as below the tunnel were several more rooms and passages on top of one and other, and the hole had burned through the floors and ceilings of these too. His cart sailed through the air and crashed onto a ledge twelve yards on the other side of the hole and two stories below where the rail had stopped.

Sparks flew wildly as the cart fell onto it's side, Xephos spilling out and rolling across the floor as it crashed into the far wall of the small room he'd landed in, coming to a stop feet from the deep hole.

"Look out! Hole!" he cried up to the floors above. The hole seemed to have began far above and had bored either up or down through many stories above and below them. Moments later another cart flew over the edge of the track, landing on the metal floor away from Xephos, bouncing off it's wheels and smashing into Xephos' cart beside the wall. Peculier was just crawling from the wreckage when Honeydew came screaming over the gap. He leapt from the cart in midair and landed with a clumsy roll as his cart sped into the wall where Peculier had leapt away from seconds before.

"Oh Jebus." Honeydew cursed as he got to his feet, the sound of explosions still echoing in the background. "Peculier are you alright?"

"I am fine." he answered.

The room was dark, the only light came through the immense hole in the ceiling, and by that light Xephos saw that the three of them were not alone in the room. He gave a start as he saw things moving in the darkness, and soon he heard a low snuffling sound that he recognised. Looking across at Honeydew, Xephos saw the dwarf frozen, listening, looking into the shadows that his dwarven eyes could more easily make sense of.

"Pigmen?!" Xephos called, both a warning and a question.

"Pigmen!" Honeydew confirmed as Xephos stepped closer to him. "Peculier, get over here!" Peculier wasted no time in drawing his sword and leaping over to them on the edge of the hole, both with swords already drawn. The circling shapes began to move closer to the light, the hairy bulk of their monstrous bodies and faces showing them for what they were, but something was different. Here and there a patch of skin was missing, sometimes as deep as the bone, a few lacked hands or half of the skin on their faces, and they walked with the senseless monotony of the undead.

"I don't think these are normal pigmen." Peculier said. "They look like _zombie_ pigmen."

"We don't need to worry, we haven't hurt them. They won't attack us if we don't hurt them." Xephos said slowly, trying to keep track of the shapes moving closer. The undead pigmen did not seem to be aggressive at the moment, and kept mostly to the dark, their numbers could be anywhere between five and twenty.

"No, we did hurt them." Honeydew said, looking through the dark to something only a dwarf could see in the darkness. "One of the carts. It's crashed into one of them. It's dead."

"Shit." Xephos said quietly. He looked over his shoulder. They were backed up against the hole, which was wider than the room's walls, leaving them nowhere to go. The gap was too far to jump, and it dropped into a sea of magma some two hundred yards below after the bottom floor. Xephos looked back at the pigmen, now moving further out from the shadows, some grasping mean looking cleavers of crude make. "Why aren't they attacking?" he asked. An explosion some way off shook the room's floor.

"Maybe because we didn't hit them personally they won't-" Honeydew began, when he was cut off by a squeal from one of the pigmen as it stepped forward into the light, fully revealing it's total horrific image; a beast half man and half boar, looking as though it had been butchered and left to rot. The creatures surrounding it then came forward as one, a stampede of maybe ten brutes rushing towards them. Xephos, Honeydew and Peculier prepare to meet them when a massive tremor surged through the complex, the largest they'd felt. The metal floors bucked as though living and threw the three backwards over the gap, the pigman vanguard in tow as they flew across the gap. Xephos fell backwards before landing heavily on the floor of a room one floor below and across from where they'd stood, Honeydew bounced backwards with a grunt as he landed, while Peculier was already rolling onto his feet, estoc raised. The fist pigman that landed stumbled, and Peculier put his thin blade through a hole in it's skull where an empty eye socket gazed out of. The beast squealed and fell backwards over the edge of the precipice. Xephos was struggling to find his feet as others landed, the rest missing the gap and falling towards the hot lake below. One pigman stepped towards him with cleaver raised to hack him apart, Xephos raised his arm over his head when an axe came down into the pigman's shoulder. The beast snarled as Honeydew stepped between them, wrenching his axe free as he stabbed with his sword, held in his other hand, piercing the chest of the pigman. It fell away into the void as the dwarf turned to help his friend to his feet.

"Come on, I can't always be the one saving you." Honeydew said as he heaved him up with an outstretched hand. He hardly had time to cry out as a thick arm reached up from below the rim of the hole and grabbed his ankle, pulling him to the ground. The pigman hung from the edge of the platform where it had landed and began to pull Honeydew towards him and the edge. Honeydew snarled and began stamping at the great rotting boar's head with his free boot. Xephos stepped forward and with a sweep of his sabre severed both of the pigman's hands. It fell away from him, reeling in the air to fade to a pinprick as it splashed into the magma.

"What was that you were just saying?" Xephos panted. He looked up to see Peculier jump away from a pigman's hack and spiring forwards again in agility that he had not had when the two had first met him. Peculier stabbed to bury his sword up to it's hilt in the chest of the beast, pushing forwards until the body fell over the lip of the seared hole, pulling his sword back as it toppled away.

"By Hari's beard." he grunted, kneading his back. "That was not welcome."

"We're alive, don't complain." Xephos said.

"Where are we?" he asked. Looking around, Xephos could see that they now stood in a long, wide tunnel, many railways abreast running the length of the passage.

"Do you think this could lead to where we wanted to go?" Honeydew asked. "The roller-coaster portal, I mean." a slight booming shook the walls slightly

"This room is wide enough for us to get around the hole. I think we should continue in the direction that we were heading when we were on the carts." Peculier stated. Xephos heard another boom some ways off, then another as the floor shook harder.

"Maybe we should try to get back up to where we were going." Honeydew suggested. The quakes were becoming almost constant now, and they felt like they were building, or coming closer.

"Okay, the level of explosions is increasing." Xephos said quickly as the rumble grew around them. "I don't want to worry you, but we should probably get moving!" he yelled.

Peculier looked as though he had just realised that standing now was like trying to stand on a wagon going down a rutted road. "Make for the end of the tunnel!" he yelled, starting around the rim of the hole, the rumbling building. Honeydew and Xephos looked at each other as they went after him, paces growing longer and quicker as the tunnel began to toss more angrily.

"I don't think hanging around here is a very good idea!" Honeydew said. They ran on down the passage, following the rails as the facility began to fall away around them one small piece at a time as they ran, the bore hole far behind them. Peculier was maintaining the lead, a miraculous feat to Xephos, who could remember having to wait for the old man before, and he ran hard. The floor was now bucking wildly, and they would surely have fallen if they'd been standing, for the floor was tilting and twisting any way the tremors forced it, when Peculier cried out, and looking ahead there came a doorway of familiar purple of light down the far end of the corridor. They were now shrouded in dimness as glowstones began falling from their braces, shattering and spreading pebbles of light onto the floor where they bounced like shrapnel in the quake. Peculier picked up his pace as they made desperate way for the portal, closing the distance between themselves and it when the building around them gave a colossal groan and was suddenly racked by a quake as large as that which sent them over the edge of the pit. The shaking did not subside, and with every footfall the three nearly fell onto the hard ground. The floor itself did not seem to be faring well, with thick splits forming in the metal as they bounded over them, legs aching and faces hot. The portal was approaching, a great monolith of dark stone. It seemed to not be in any danger of toppling in the growing quakes, moving with the floor and never leaving it. They were almost upon it when with a great wrenching the wall to their right slowly peeled away from the building, screeching as it fell back from them and towards the magma. In the ground too great chasms opened like thirsty lips, through which Xephos could see the floors below them falling away into the lake of fire under them. With a great leap he crossed one and saw the portal, not ten yards away.

"We're nearly out!" he yelled. Peculier reached the surface first, jumping mightily over the last two yards and sliding through the light. Honeydew and Xephos saved no time for courtesy with the ground opening before and behind them, and did not wait for one and other. Xephos gave a long leap as Honeydew dived headlong into the portal, both passing into the rippling light in the same breath, the hungry void swallowing them as the building began to crack and shatter. They had long disappeared when the facility gave out and slipped, grating from cliffs and through the air where it landed in the lustful magma, where the molten rock swallowed it, taking the portal with it.

". . .Where. . .the hell. . .are we now. . ?" Xephos panted. He was crouched on his hands and knees, back facing the portal which they'd exited from. Honeydew lay supine beside him, staring up at the stone ceiling above them while Peculier sat with his back to the wall of the room they sat within.

". . .We must be somewhere. . .under the roller-coaster. . ." Peculier puffed. The room was near pitch black, and would have been if not for the light of the portal behind them. They were sprawled within what appeared to be a large alcove cut into stone for the portal to rest, but it seemed that it had been boarded up some time ago by the planks that covered the entryway.

"Right." Honeydew sighed, making a small effort to roll over and stand, but giving up halfway. "I guess we have to hack our way through the boards." he added.

"Yeah." Xephos slowly began to get to his feet, legs shaking from exhaustion. "It looks like someone's tried to hide this." he said, still short of breath.

"The Carnival you mean?" Honeydew successfully rolled over this time. "Do you think they were actually in cahoots with the Cult of Israphel this whole time, and had this portal all the time?"

"It's equally likely that they found wherever we are and just boarded it up, wanting to forget it existed. They probably had no idea what it was, except Nubescu. She seemed to have some idea of things." Xephos rested his arm against the boards, leaning against them to test the weight. They creaked but did not give way. "These boards seem pretty old, it won't take long to chop a way through. Honeydew." he added, resulting in a groan from the dwarf as he reluctantly pulled himself to his feet. The portal behind them gave a strangled sigh and the purple light winked out, flooding them in dark.

"Oh! What happened!? Peculier?" Xephos called, spinning around.

"I should think that the portal this one is linked to in the Nether has fallen." Peculier's voice came from beside Xephos, making him jump. "The connection has been severed between them."

"Well we'd better get through this barricade." Xephos turned to Honeydew. Some little light was coming through the cracks at the foot of the door, lightly illuminating the tall dwarf's boots. "Honeydew, can you-" before he could finish there came the thudding of Honeydew's axe hacking into the wooden boards. There was the sound of tearing fabric as he swung again, Xephos and Peculier standing back as the axe-falls tore through a wallhanging on the other side of the boardings, an attempt to further mask the presence of the portal. Dim light reached out and touched a dusty finger to Honeydew's face as he continued to swing away, the gap growing larger and wider until it was wide enough to pass through.

Parting the savaged hanging, Xephos stepped through the ragged hole and into the other room, Peculier and then Honeydew followed. It seemed to have been repurposed by the carnival folk, once it would have been similar to the control room in the Skyhold, for set into the walls were the glass-screened boxes and metal panels of Precursor technology. But it had seemed as though as much effort as possible had been made to cover their presence, with many plain wall-hangings covering as much as was possible, making the room resemble a patchwork quilt. Otherwise, the room was plain, with stone floor walls and ceiling, lit dimly by a single glowstone lamp, casting a honey coloured glow about the room. It indeed seemed that the room was underground, confirming Peculier's suspicions.

"What is this?" Honeydew said as he stood before a large curtain against the wall right from the portal alcove. "There's a sign here that reads: "_Nubescu's room for the powdering of my face._"." he read, looking up a wooden sign above the curtain, the words written in thick black characters. "It's weird reading it without her accent." Honeydew added, making a surprisingly accurate attempt at the voodoo lady's croaking voice.

"Is there a room here then?" Xephos asked, walking up and pushing at the curtain. When his hand did not meet a wall he pulled it aside and let the weak light sweep into the dusty room. The room was hardly bigger than the alcove they had just left, and appeared to be Madame Nubescu's quarters. There was no light save what they let enter through the open curtain, which showed a small bed across one side of the room with a large chest at it's foot and a small table beside it's head, and a large bookshelf taking up nearly the entire other wall of the room. The conditions were all in all cramped, and now covered in dust of abandonment.

"_This_ is where she lived?" Honeydew looked into the dark room. "Banjo doesn't treat her well at all." he added gravely.

"I'll bet he got her to write that sign above the door as some joke." Xephos said as he let the curtain fall, stepping back into the main room. He paced across the room to the alcove where the portal stood empty. "So this is the roller-coaster outside Verigan's? Are we underneath it? Underground? Were the Cult using this as a means of transportation even when the Carnival was occupying here?" he turned to Peculier. "You don't have any idea where we could be?" he said thoughtfully.

"I'm afraid not. I can only trust that this _was_ the portal to the roller-coaster and not by coincidence some other hideout of the carnival folk." Peculier had his helm under his arm, as though ready to put it on at any moment.

"So it's likely that this is the one at the roller-coaster then." Xephos said. "We should work on finding our way out of here and see just where it is we are."

"How will we get out?" Honeydew asked, giving a cough from the dust.

Xephos crossed over to the wall opposite the entrance to Nubescu's alcove where two doors stood, firmly shut. "We'll just have to follow wherever these door leads, I suppose." he said, pushing the thick wooden doors apart. They squealed with age and lack of use, opening to a larger room similar to the other. It was lit by two lamps of glowstone that left the corners dark. Precursor machinations were set into walls and more draperies hung over them, some moth-eaten and torn. Xephos walked over to one of a set of heavy tables that dominated the room. Their surfaces were gouged and chairs were like as not to be thrown halfway across the room than at the tables. Another door stood set into the same wall as the one they'd entered through at the other end of the room near a large bookshelf and what seemed to be a pile of wooden scenery cutouts leaned against a wall.

"Where are we now?" Peculier asked as he wandered deeper into the room.

"I think this place served as a storage room or a dining area." Honeydew suggested as he investigated the corners of the room. "Oh, hello!" he cried. Xephos turned to face him as the dwarf hefted a small chest onto the first table. "Look what I found!" Honeydew spun the chest around, where embossed on the lid were words printed in a curved cursive.

""_Bruno's Secret Stash._"." Xephos read. "Not very secret, is it?"

"I wonder what's inside." Honeydew grinned, spinning the box back to face him and opened it. "Not even locked." Xephos walked casually around the table to see what lay within the chest as Honeydew lay the lid back. "Look." Honeydew said, picking up a piece of paper and lifting it to his eyes so he could read the thick crude letters. ""_No Babies._" A message from Bruno?" he laughed, tossing the paper aside. "Fuck you, Bruno."

"What's in here?" asked Xephos as Honeydew unceremoniously overturned the box, it's contents spilling over the table with a loud thud. Out rolled a few stale biscuits, looking too ancient for consumption, and half a dozen pieces of pink cloth.

Xephos examined one of the pieces of cloth, spreading it out on the table-top."Oh gods. . .please don't be-" he began when Honeydew cut him off with a loud shriek of laughter that brought Peculier running from the other side of the room.

"They're his pants!" Honeydew roared. "His fucking underwear!" he leaned against the table in a fit of laughter, pointing to the spread out pair of tight shorts identical to the ones that they'd seen Bruno wearing both times they'd encountered the brute. "I can't. . ." he gasped.

"Wait, what's this?" Xephos said as Honeydew continued to border on asphyxiation. In the dust atop the table he saw something pressing it's image into the dust as though he could only see the imprint and not the object itself. Xephos reached out and as his fingers drew near the long groove in the dust they met something resisting them. The jolt of meeting his fingers pushed whatever it was along the table slightly, dragging a gouge in the dust. "There's something here!" he said, fumbling for whatever lay there, invisible. His hand came around a solid shaft that felt of wood, but he saw nothing. Cautiously he lifted it. The object had some heavy head at the other end and he lifted it, running his hand all over the length of the object, feeling it's shape. "Gods, Honeydew. . ." he said, staring at what he was unable to see. "Honeydew!" he yelled slapping the still immobilised dwarf across the back of his head. Honeydew looked up at him, a hurt expression on his face.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Look at this." Xephos said. He swung the invisible object and slammed the head into the table, the heavy beak stabbing through the boards, leaving a deep hole visible as Xephos let it stand. "It's an invisible pickaxe." he said.

"An invisible-" Honeydew said for a moment, confused, then his eyes widened in rage. "Oh my gods that's how he cheated! That son of a. . . Oh, I'm furious." Honeydew fumbled out, eventually finding the shaft of the charmed pick, wrenching it free. "Who's the weak babby now?" he yelled, dropping the pick back onto the table. "I knew something was rigged in that competition. We fucking called it."

"I knew there was something." Xephos agreed. "There's no way he could've beaten you."

"What are you two talking about?" Peculier asked.

"We told you about the first time we met the carnival folk ages ago, remember?" Xephos said. "We suspected that Bruno was cheating in the Test of Strength, and it seems that he was." Honeydew listened, gave a nod of approval and turned his attention to the pile of Bruno's underwear. He took a pair from the pile and began to pull it over his boots. "What are you doing?" Xephos asked.

"Call it a trophy." Honeydew said, pulling the pair of pants up around his waist, They were stretched to the stitches around his trousers and made the dwarf look utterly ridiculous.

"That doesn't look very heroic." Peculier commented blankly as Honeydew proudly placed his hands on his hips.

"How is it?" Honeydew asked. "Be honest."

"It suits you." Xephos laughed.

"Heroes, we should continue." Peculier interjected. "And we should try to avoid distractions in the next rooms." he added in a slightly hard tone.

"Gods, you're right." Honeydew blinked. "Sorry Peculier, this door was it?" he said, walking across the dim room to the other door.

"Yes, you're right let's get the hell out of here." Xephos agreed, following Honeydew to the door. It opened to a ladder that reached up some fifteen yards to another room. They climbed swiftly, now eager to reach the outside and discover just where they were. The room at the top of the ladder was small and on plain stone save one wall of wooden paneling that looked far more permanent than what had block off the alcove.

"There's nothing up here." Honeydew sighed, looking about the dark room as Peculier crawled out of the tube. Xephos walked over to the wooden wall, searching for a doorway, when where the wall met another on the right he found a large stone circle set into the wall, traced with metal.

"Wait, there's a button over here." he called to Honeydew.

"Oh? Well press it then!" Honeydew replied. Xephos' hand hovered cautiously over the circle, then he pushed the button firmly into the wall, where it rested with a click. For a while nothing happened, and Xephos went to press it again when the entire wooden wall gave a shift and began to sink slowly into the floor, opening the way into the room beyond.

"Where the hell are we now?" Xephos said, taking a cautious step into the room, lit only by the glowstone from the ceiling hanging above the ladder. It was a wide room, filled with colourful curtains and drapes hanging from the ceiling in tatters.

"It's a bit dark, isn't it?" Honeydew commented.

All about the room were chests and int the center was a large black cauldron. Xephos stopped a step into the room. It felt familiar, but of equal importance was the fact that the floor, of colourful carpets, was covered in a thin bed of sand.

"Oh gods." Xephos breathed, staring at the cauldron in the center of the room. "This is Nubescu's old room where she told our fortunes." he looked over at Honeydew.

"Gods, you're right. It's the room from before." Honeydew walked across to the cauldron. "She charged us almightily to have our fortunes read."

"Honeydew, there's sand here as well." Xephos added. He was now moving to the far corner of the room on the right, where if memory served him well was the way they'd entered the chamber weeks ago. Only now the ladder-way was filled with sand a foot deep, seeming to slowly drop from the trapdoor that was above it.

"Sand? Uh oh." Honeydew breathed.

"We need to get to the surface, now." Peculier urged. "Come now, up the ladder!" he said, all but an order, walking quickly over to the alcove that the ladders leading to the surface were within. Honeydew and Xephos followed him to the alcove, looking up at the trapdoor above.

"This sand," Honeydew said, looking at the runnels of sand creeping through the cracks under the trapdoor. "please don't mean what I think it means."

"Come on." Xephos started up the ladder. "We need to get the map to Adaephon. That was our quest." he didn't think about the sand as he climbed. He did not want to think about why it could be creeping through the trapdoor. Reaching the trapdoor, Xephos tried to push it open, but a great weight bore down upon it. Heaving, he managed to open the trapdoor a crack, and as he did so a stream of sand poured through and fell past him. Heaving again he pushed the gap wider, and the trickle turned into a torrent, with great steams of hot sand washing over him as he swung the trapdoor wide open. The sand swept past him and onto Honeydew and Peculier below him as he held onto the ladder in the flood-tide. As the flow stopped, Xephos looked up and saw all around the mouth of the trapdoor two feet of yellow sand. Xephos scrambled feverishly out of the hole and up onto the sand, and when he looked up the sight was worse than he could have believed possible.

Honeydew and Peculier were soon crawling out of the hole too, a dark bore in a plain of sand. They looked up and saw what lay before them and were terrified by it. Sand lay everywhere, thick swathes of it covered as far as they could see, from the carnival grounds to up over the hill that led to Verigan's Hold. From beyond The Wall, now toppled and buried under great dunes, there reached great arcs of sandstone, higher than the tallest power of Verigan's reaching over their heads and over the mountain behind them, the carved skull now looking as though it had been weathered by one hundred years of age. The worst of all of it was the Hold itself. Half buried in it's entirety, one tower was lay broken somewhere under the dune that now sat atop the keep. The front wall was smothered by the sand, and from the foot of the hill that they looked up at it from the path leading to the castle was invisible under the drifts. The Sands had taken the hold, and The Wall was broken.

"Jebus fucking christ." Xephos breathed, looking up at the castle, aghast as a dry breeze blew past them. "It's fallen. The Wall is down."

"Verigan's Hold. . ." Peculier groaned.

"It's all covered in sand and shit!" Honeydew cried. "Is it too late then? Have we been too fucking slow!? _Is it done!?_"

"It's the Sands, they've. . ." Peculier continued to speak with a tremble. He then looked up with a look of desperate resolve. "Adaephon!" he cried. "We need to find Adaephon! Gods please allow him to still live."

"Alright." Xephos said, still awestruck by the fury of the unchained desert. "We need to get into the castle. Come on!" he did not look back when he started off at a run up the hill to Verigan's Hold. Running uphill through sand left him tired by the time he got to halfway but he would not allow himself to stop until he reached the gates, covered by the flanks of the dune that engulfed the castle walls. Honeydew and Peculier were not even a moment behind him.

"We need to get inside." Peculier said.

"We can get over the wall by climbing the dune." Honeydew suggested. "Do you know where Adaephon would be in a case like this?" he asked. Peculier gave no answer as he doubled back to get to the foot of the dune and climb over the wall.

"We just need to get into the keep." Xephos said as he turned to follow Honeydew. "And take off those goddamned pants!" he snapped after noticing that Honeydew was still wearing Bruno's tiny pink underwear. Honeydew grabbed them by the crotch and ripped them off as he ran after Peculier, leaving them to the sands.

The dune brought them up over the wall and down into the courtyard of Verigan's Hold, which was now filled like a bowl with sand; the entire ground floor was submerged, with the sand coming to the foot of the second floor windows. Not stopping his pace, Xephos ran over to the right-most window and drew his axe.

"It's a shame about the window but this in necessary." he said as he shattered the window with a toss of the axe's heavy head. "We're in a hurry!" he knocked away the long knives of glass that remained before stepping through and making a short drop onto the mezzanine floor within the keep, with Honeydew and Peculier followed him inside.

"This place used to be in need of some love, but now it's beyond saving." Honeydew said. From under where they stood on the mezzanine a drift of sand spread across the floor where it had smashed through the window and doors, sweeping the large table that sat in middle of the room into the back wall. The large wall hanging depicting the Crimson Cross of the Templars was in shreds and barely hanging from the wall, a forlorn metaphor for the state of all that the Wall had for.

"Where is Adaephon?" Xephos asked.

"_**Adaephon!"**_ Honeydew bellowed to no result. The silence that followed his call was emphasised by the hissing of the wind across the dunes

". . .He may be dead." Xephos said. "Maybe he decided to go down with The Wall."

"No, I don't believe he would give up like that." Peculier said. "There is one place that he could be hiding: His private quarters."

"Where is that?" Honeydew asked. Peculier had leapt off the mezzanine before the dwarf had finished. He landed on the drift of sand and slid down it onto the floor of the first floor. "This way!" he called. Xephos jumped after him and Honeydew landed beside him. Peculier stood before the hanging of the Templar standard he reached to the middle of the sheet at the bottom and lifted in away, revealing a crank set into a hole in the wall. He pulled it and there came a scraping sound from the right wall. Peculier was already standing before the entrance when the secret door finished sliding open.

"There was a secret room here the whole time?" Honeydew gaped as he stepped off the sand drift and followed Xephos after Peculier through the doorway. It opened to a dark narrow stairway with bookshelves lining each wall, filled with tomes of every variety. Following Peculier, Xephos heard him talking quietly under his breath as they ran up the winding stairs.

". . .please Uncle, be here. . .be buried under The Sands. . ." he said. Moments later they reached the top of the stairs, finding themselves in a moderate sized room of modest accommodation. There were no windows, leaving the room dark, only several tapestries of past Templars and another door on the opposite end of the room interrupted the walls. A single rug of cream with the Templar sigil adorned the floorboards, and the only furniture was a single table and chair, more bookshelves, and a large bed across the other side of the room. The darkness clouded there eyes, but as their eyes fell on the bed Xephos saw the form of a man half slumped on the mattress, fully dressed in Templar uniform, spear lying on the floor beside him.

"Uncle!" Peculier yelled, crossing the room in long bounds, coming to the bedside of the man.

Xephos hurried after him, looking down at the bent form before them.

"Honeydew, get us a light going!" he said.

"How's he looking?" the dwarf asked.

". . .He's not looking good." Xephos said quietly. "Come on, we need a light."

Honeydew ran about the room, eventually finding a lantern on the table. He lit it quickly with his flint and bryne-steel, sending a brief, bright flash across the room before the lantern took, and brought the light over to Peculier, who had rolled Adaephon's broken looking form onto his back on the bed.

He was alive, that much relieved them. His eyes were closed and eyebrows knitted in fitful sleep as he limply groaned and shuddered in his stupor.

"Oh gods, last time I saw someone like this the skin melted right off their bones. What?" Honeydew added when Xephos shot him a look.

The noise seemed to have disturbed Adaephon, and he stirred. The old man did not wake, but he spoke as he slept. ". . .Verigan? Is that you?. ." he gave a cough as Peculier leaned closer to him. ". . .Why aren't you at school?"

"Wake up, Uncle!" Peculier said, trying to shake Adaephon awake. "Uncle! What is wrong!?" he said shaking him more rigorously, to no result.

"Oh gods, he's lost his mind." Honeydew said under his breath as he held up the lamp while Adaephon gave no stop to his monolog.

". . .The Sentinels!" he cried in his sleep, voice slightly muffled by his scarf around his mouth. "They boil the desert with their eyes. . !" he began to thrash about, and his scarf came loose, showing his mouth for the first time that Xephos had seen. All about his mouth his sun-darkened skin was covered in the scar-tissue of hideous burns, leaving ruptures in his flesh and burning away a hole in his left cheek. Peculier fell upon him to hold him down as he trashed.

"He is burning with fever!" he said as soon as his hands touched his arms.

". . .The molten terrors of the Old Ones. . ! . . .Nightmares of steel and fire. . .They come!"

"Wake up Uncle!" Peculier cried at Adaephon's face.

"Xephos, just say the word and I'll smother him with that pillow." Xephos heard Honeydew whisper over his shoulder. He gave a kick backwards, heel colliding with Honeydew's shin and resulting in a satisfying groan.

"Water! Heroes we need water to pour over him!" Peculier turned to them. "Do you have any water!" he asked.

". . .Ash and apocalypse. . ."

"Right, water. . ." Xephos felt about the side of his pack for his water-skin, taking it walking over to Adaephon's side.

"Quick, pour it over his face!" Peculier said from beside him. Xephos un-stoppered the skin and tipped it over Adaephon's head. The nearly full skin spilled out clear water onto Adaephon's face, splashing over him. He gave a start, his eyes flashing open, then tried to sit bolt upright as Xephos jerked back. Peculier caught Adaephon by the shoulders halfway through a wordless cry, and stared him right in the eyes. "Uncle, you're awake!" Peculier yelled over his screams. "You're alright!"

"Adaephon!" Xephos sighed. The old man stopped screaming and sat still a moment, looking about himself in the silence.

". . .Where am I?" he asked, voice haggard.

"You are safe, Uncle." Peculier responded. "But I am afraid that Verigan's Hold has fallen to the Sands, as has much of The Wall." Adaephon looked at Peculier lowly for a moment, as if only barely able to recognise him.

"Then I have failed." he croaked, shaking off Peculier and pulling himself off the bed to a shaky stand. "I am so tired." he groaned in a quiet voice. He turned to face the three of them roughly, wobbling dangerously as he did. "Go, please. Let me die. . ." he said, distorted mouth trembling. He seemed to not realise he did not wear his scarf any longer.

"No!" Peculier took a step forward to steady Adaephon. "Uncle, you must come with us." he said firmly.

"Run. Run far away and never look back." Adaephon cried tearfully, trying to fight off Peculier. "Without The Map the world is doomed!"

"But we have the map fragments!" Honeydew yelled over him.

"Yes Uncle, we have the map fragments right here!" Peculier echoed. At these words Adaephon ceased his struggling. He looked at Peculier, then Honeydew, then Xephos with a look of wonder.

"The- You really?" he said, voice a whisper of a gasp.

"Get the maps, get the maps!" Xephos hissed to Honeydew. The dwarf handed him the lamp and rushed to drop his pack and began to virtually upend it until there were four pieces of yellowed parchment on the floor before them.

"Here! Here!" he scrabbled to pick them up, handing them to Adaephon, who received them with shaky hands. Xephos stepped over to Adaephon, holding the lamp over him as he looked over the torn pieces of paper.

"Yes. . . Look!" Adaephon breathed. With unsteady feet he nearly fell over himself as he rushed over to his writing desk in the corner of the room. "The light, boy, the light!" he called as Xephos set the lamp beside him. Xephos heard his breath catch as Adaephon shuffled the paper about, eventually setting them together as one square. "This. . . This is the map." Adaephon said in a voice thick with emotion.

They looked down upon the map in a cocktail of hope and confusion. Together the fragments created an image of looking down upon the Sands, a long, thick body of water hooked from the bottom of the page into the center, with what appeared to oases dotted along it's coasts. All across the map were icons of mountains set seemingly at random into the landscape, striking out of the sand like spires of a buried palace. Yet from the bottom left side of the map there snaked a sinuous dotted red line. It wove through the desert until it came to rest at a red "X" near the top left of the map. Adaephon was working busily as they watched, heating wax over the lamp and glueing the pieces to another larger sheet of paper, set once more together.

"Now, this might not seem like much on it's own, but with aid from some charts this clearly shows the way forwards." Adaephon suddenly stood up and rushed across the room, forgetting the lamp and hurrying over towards the chest at the foot of his bed. He seemed to stumble as he ran, and caught himself with a wince, then stood with his back to them a moment before kneeling slowly to open the chest. "I am too old and too weak." he said. It seemed like less of an excuse and more of a realisation, as if he had only now admitted that he was not capable of defending The Wall now that it was fallen. "I have no choice." he wearily opened the chest and began to remove rolls of charts and a map-case, stowing they carefully within.

"Are you okay Adaephon. . ?" Xephos asked as Adaephon reached back into the chest and withdrew a letter. He stared at it for a long while until Peculier stepped forwards and repeated Xephos' question. Adaephon looked at him and then at the letter he held again.

"Come young one." he said, taking a breath. "There is something that you need to see." he pressed the map-case into Peculier's hands and started for the set of doors across the room, gesturing for them to follow. Honeydew and then Xephos followed after Peculier as they made after Adaephon for the door. It led to a tight spiral stairway, some small light trickling down from above as Adaephon made his slow way around the bend.

"This probably goes up one of the towers." Honeydew said as they started after Adaephon. The stairs wound about the column twice before opening into a wide circular room with wide windows and a bridge spanning across to another high tower, only now the great dunes swept up to just below the floor level. Out of the windows they could see the great dunes stretching as far away as they could perceive, only the dunes were now different to the ones that they'd seen weeks earlier. To the south The Wall stretched onwards, great patches smashed down, allowing sand to pour through. The same situation followed the other length of The Wall as it turned east, with the land that lay to north and west covered in a yellow sand, save for what they saw in the far distance.

"Why would you want me to see this?" Peculier breathed.

"Not that." Adaephon said as he stared out of the window, the sight transfixing him. He tore himself away and raised the letter. "This."

"What is it?" Xephos asked.

"This is a letter that Karpath left me before he died." Adaephon said.

"You knew Karpath?" Honeydew asked.

"How do _you_ know that he's dead?" Peculier asked. "Uncle, what have you been hiding?"

"It is all in the letter my boy." Adaephon stepped toward Peculier and held it out towards him. "I only hope that you will forgive me for all that I have done, and what I am about to do." Peculier took the letter and began to read, then began again, reading aloud. All were silent throughout the reading, and the script was as follows:

_Little brother,_

_I leave you this note in secret, knowing that you may never see me again. My fears of a darker evil are true. I have changed my name to Peculier, and under the guise of a City Guard I have infiltrated a Cult, and tonight I will halt the corruption at it's source. If I should fail then terrible events would proceed quickly, and you must be ready. The sand will flow from the desert, devouring everything._

_You must recover my map from the hidden places I have placed them, and then travel to the Spider Tree along the East Wall. From there seek the tomb of our ancestors, and do what must be done._

_I have left Isabel and young Verigan in the care of Gwynevere Bacon. If I do not return and The Sands remain calm, then we have won, and you can rebuild the world in peace._

_My last request, brother, is that you never tell my children of my fate and of the terrible burden of our family bloodline._

_My The Sands never dull your blade, Brother._

_Karpath Antioch_

"I-I am sorry to have kept this from you nephew." Adaephon hung his head. "And I am sorry that I have had to break the promise that I kept your father."

Peculier said nothing. He had not looked up from the paper, he seemed to be constantly be re-reading the phrase "_Isabel and young Verigan_" over and over. Finally he looked up.

"Is this true." he said in a hard tone.

"Yes, your true name is Verigan Antioch." Adaephon looked up at him. "Named after your grandfather of the same name."

"And you?"

"My name is Adaephon Antioch, not Peculier."

"So Karpath is "Peculier's" dad?" Honeydew said. "And he was the guard that we heard about in Mistral. And Peculier's name is actually Verigan?" Honeydew blurted out.

"That's right-" Xephos began.

"And we have to go to a tree full of spiders!?" Honeydew continued.

Adaephon continued to talk with Peculier as though Honeydew had not spoken.

"Karpath said that I am the last of the Templar Kings. When I die, that title will fall to you." Peculier looked even more taken aback by this than he had before.

"To me?" he said. "Who are the Templar Kings? And what is this burden of our bloodline?"

"I cannot say because I do not know." Adaephon moved over to a window overlooking the golden expanse of the desert, almost seeming beautiful in the high golden sunlight. "Although I suspect that you will be the bearer of the title very soon." he stared out over the desert wistfully, as strange expression on his scarred face. "I am old, Verigan. I have watched over this Wall my entire life, and now that it has fallen, it seems fitting that this is also the time for me to do so as well." He looked up at Peculier and pushed himself back to his feet. "But enough talk, to the next tower! I hope it is not ruined." he hobbled past Peculier, Xephos and Honeydew and towards the bridge that connected the tower to another to the east. "You have much to do, and not much time to do so."


	37. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter37

Chapter 37: Ballooning

The tower across the bridge was surrounded by sand which came up to only a yard below the height of the walkway which they crossed, following Adaephon through a doorway and into the next tower. All around the wide circular room were great windows, offering a view of the entire eastern reaches of The Wall and the expanding desert. Across from them an open doorway led out to a balcony facing east with the wall, the great rising dune came up to meet it. Xephos walked out to the balcony and gazed over the landscape before him, the roiling mass of The Sands and the buried countryside beyond The Wall, smothered in desert, with the great beams of solid sand arcing over The Wall and smashing into the landscape beyond. The thin grey line of The Wall stretched far into the east, seeming never to end as the sun beat down, leaving a precious few clouds to float by.

"Of course you shall need supplies." Adaephon said as he stepped out behind Honeydew and Peculier onto the balcony. In his hands he held both a bundle of arrows and quarrels, steel-tipped and well fletched. "This tower served as a dispatch point for entry into the desert, I'm sure they'll be more things about." he added to himself as he handed the bundles to Honeydew and Xephos, who untied them and filled their rather empty quivers as Adaephon plodded back into the tower to search through the assorted chests and tall cupboards for more supplies for their journey into the desert.

"I've counted thirty. How much do you have?" Xephos asked.

"Twenty-four, not counting the seven flint-tipped bolts I had left over." Honeydew said. "I supposed that will be enough, it all depends I suppose."

"Depends on what?"

Honeydew looked up.

"Whether or not we're coming back." he said, his tone suggesting that he'd been suspecting such a fate for a long while. Xephos felt a realisation wash over him like ice through his veins. Honeydew was of course right, but Xephos had not even considered the likelihood of their return. He realised that he was staring hollowed eyed at where Honeydew had stood, but the dwarf had since moved over to the wooden railing of the balcony.

"What are those?" he said abruptly. Xephos and Peculier came over to him at the railing as he pointed into the sky over the dunes. A group of large round objects were floating slowly downward towards the foot of the dune that led up to the tower, they were close together and had a light coloured skin, moving with a slow grace.

"What? I thought they were clouds." Xephos said as he stared over at the approaching objects.

"They're no clouds, they are moving too fast, and what's that on their surfaces?" Peculier spoke up, peering ahead. As the cluster of objects came closer they could see that on either side of each object's bulbous white body was a large red cross, and hanging below it's bulk seemed to be an apparatus of ropes.

"Airships," Xephos breathed as the small ships approached the foot of the dune, slowing for landing. "And they have the token of the Templars on them. Is it more templars come to help?"

"I did not know that any of the Eastern Holds used airships like that, or were in fact still operating." Peculier said as airships landed heavily on the sand below them.

"I'll call out to them." Honeydew said, before bellowing two-hundred yards down the sand dune. _**"I say! Hello, are you friendly!?"**_ at the tiny airships. There came no response, and from their vantage they were only just able to make out the the tiny flailing forms of each pilot, trying to free themselves.

"I'll go down and greet them." Xephos said. "Someone go and tell Adaephon about this." he said as he swung his legs over the railing, lowering himself onto the sloping dune just below. His boots sunk into the sand as he made contact, sinking to mid-calf as Honeydew called down from above him.

"Alright mate, watch yourself." he said.

"Don't worry, I'll be back." Xephos said over his shoulder as he started down the steep dune, leaving a swathe in the sand behind him. The airships were tiny, Xephos realised as he approached the cluster, only designed to carry one person at any time, with a harness of ropes hanging below each emblazoned envelope. He saw the pilots struggling clumsily as he stopped some fifty yards off, one of them eventually coming loose and stumbling across the sand.

"Hello down there!" Xephos called. "Are you from one of the strongholds along The Wall!?"

As he called out the first figure to come free looked up at him as others came loose of their bonds. It staggered out of the shade of the envelopes and the harsh sun shone across it's pitted decaying face. The creature gave a rattling cry and started shakily stalking towards Xephos, speed increasing as it came, the others close behind. Xephos took only a second before turning and beginning to furiously surge back up the dune, sand giving away under his boots, slowing his progress as he tried desperately to outrun the zombies as they began to chase him up the slope.

"Honeydew!" he cried, half way up the slope. "They're undead! Shoot them!" he looked ahead, and saw Honeydew looking down at him, not understanding what he was hearing. Xephos cursed and continued up the slope, his calves and thighs tightening as he fell, beginning to crawl desperately on hands and knees. He heard a whizzing over his head and not far behind him the thump and cry of Honeydew's bolt finding it's mark, sending the undead templar tumbling down the slope in a cloud of sand. He glanced over his shoulder to see a half dozen more zombies hardly ten yards behind him. _They're in the sunlight! Why are they not burning!? _he thought. as he scrambled further up the dune. Another bolt shot past him, going wide and missing. He heard a loud oath from Honeydew, and looked up to see Peculier leaping off the balcony, the only thing that disqualified his movement from tumbling was the fact that he still moved his legs as he sped down towards Xephos, sword free and shining. As Peculier raced towards him Xephos turned, drawing his own sabre and standing his ground. He slashed as he drew, cutting down the first unarmed zombie, a bolt suddenly appearing in the forehead of the next closest. As Xephos prepared to rush the next one to his left Peculier barreled past him and leapt onto the figure, his sword stabbing through it's throat. The force of the impact carried Peculier and the zombie down the slope, where they crashed into another. They rolled for a long while, locked in a violent struggle until Peculier dug his boots into the sand and slowed to a stop as the two lifeless corpses continued to tumble down the dune. Xephos was watching his friend come to a stop thirty yards below him as he waited for the next zombie to reach him, scrambling on all fours. He prepared to slash it open from shoulder to waist when a great shrieking screamed past his head, and an arrow the size of a small javelin impaled the undead templar like a hog on a spit. Xephos turned to look back up the dune and saw Adaephon at the edge of the balcony, holding in his ancient hands an enormous longbow, taller than his whole body. He drew it back again, another titanic arrow nocked into the string. Adaephon, in spite of his age, drew the mighty bow to his ear and held. Xephos fell flat against the slope and a moment later the cry of the huge arrow passed overhead. Looking back over his shoulder, Xephos saw the figure of the last zombie standing totally still, a thick hole in it's chest where the arrow had passed clean through. It swayed slightly then fell backwards and slid a few yards before turning and beginning roll down the dune to join it's comrades.

Peculier soon came up to where Xephos sat on the dune, panting and covered in sweat. "Zombies. . . in the daytime. . ?" he puffed.

Xephos looked down at the broken forms that were coming to rest at the foot of the slope. "I'd take it that this is a show of Israphel's power. Endermen, and now zombies in daylight. What was it we were saying in that machine of Finbar's?" Xephos shook his head before turning and looking back up the dune to the balcony, where Adaephon and Honeydew were looking down at them. "Let's get back up to them." he said. "I'll bet that Adaephon wants a word." The climb was slower now, but no less arduous, each step into the steep sand sunk half a foot, making progress sluggish. Honeydew vaulted over the balcony rail and ran down to meet them as they came closer, skidding past them when he tried to stop.

"What was up with that?" he asked, face white in spite of the heat. "Did you say they were undead? In daylight!?"

"Yes." Xephos said. "I don't know how, but they were." they reached the top of the dune now, and pulled themselves up onto the balcony together, where Adaephon stood, still holding the enormous wood and bone greatbow, looking out over the dunes, scarf back up around his mouth as though he'd only just realised it's absence.

"Do those balloons have the Crimson Cross on them?" Adaephon asked, peering down at them.

"Yes. The zombies were templars I believe." Xephos replied. "Where would they have come from?"

"I do not know." Adaephon turned away from the desert and faced the three of them, stress marking his aged face. "I was not aware any of the Eastern Bastions used the balloons any more. I should assume that maybe they are a group of some long dead rangers, captured by the Pale One and sent to seek out and finish me off if I were still alive." his face eased as he looked up. "I must thank you for rousing me then, if you'd not come I would be soon dead, if not from my wounds then by the hands of his servants."

Honeydew turned and looked down at the group of balloons, now unanchored and slowly drifting apart from each other across the sand.

"Do you think that we would be able to use them?" he asked, dread in his voice. He others stopped and glanced at him and then the tiny airships. "Hey, I'm no fan of just dangling from a harness, but we don't have time to waste, and I'll wager they'll get us to wherever we're going a good deal faster than walking." he stared off into the desert, eyes gazing towards the golden expanse that went on forever. "Wherever that is." he added ruefully.

Adaephon gave a grunt of approval. "They are relatively simple to use, the wind is heading east, in your favor. You know the basics of airsailing?" he stared down the dune at the group of six ships, swaying like oversized toadstools in the wind.

"Uh. . . no." Honeydew said bluntly. "Not really. I've only ever seen them driven."

"Oh come on, but you know how it works right?" Xephos said in mild exasperation.

"Sure." Honeydew said, sounding less than confident.

"Do you know how to fly, Peculier?" Xephos asked, glancing back at Peculier, who was cleaning his sword of any sand that may cause rust.

"I know how to do it." he nodded, then put away his sword and stepped towards Adaephon. "Uncle, come with us." he said. "You can help us, and there is nothing left for you here. The Wall has fallen, there is nothing left for you to protect."

"I am too weak, I am sorry." Adaephon croaked lightly, laying a hand on the railing and looking back at what remained of Verigan's Hold. "I swore to protect Verigan's Hold till death, and shall do so. Though I suspect that shall not be for too long." he ground, voice laden with sadness. "Time is short, as you said. You must hurry."

Peculier stepped over to Adaephon and placed his right hand on Adaephon's right shoulder, held straight between them in an odd salute. He then buckled and fell into an embrace with his uncle. "Farewell Uncle." he said, voice a strained whisper. "If we return to you I hope it is in better times." he added as they parted. Something about the remark seemed to have an air of finality, like both uncle and nephew knew that this was their final meeting, and acknowledged it.

"The Spider Tree is east along the Wall." Adaephon said. "From there it should become obvious where you should head. Consult these maps, and take these supplies, you will need everything I can offer." he handed Peculier the cylindrical map case and made gesture to a pile of water-skins and food packages that were laid beside the door. The three replaced their near empty skins and refilled their packs with food before saying once more farewell to Adaephon and one by one vaulting over the railing and skidding a couple of yards down the dune before as one they started down, heading for the airships as the sun dipped below it's zenith.

"Rest up, Adaephon!" Xephos stopped and cried up to Adaephon, who watched them go from the balcony. The aged templar did not respond, only stood very still and then turn and head back inside. Xephos looked at where he'd stood for a moment in worry, realising that he would never see the old man again. He turned back and followed Honeydew and Peculier down the dune, catching up to his friends. "Are you looking forward to this Spider Tree, Honeydew?" he asked with a grin.

"Have a guess." the tall dwarf replied with a chuckle that his heart seemed to not be in.

"It's a tree that's a giant spider's nest." Peculier said. "It became so infamous to travelers that were attacked along their way east that it earned itself the name as a landmark."

"Fucking great." Honeydew groaned. "Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. It's a tree with spiders in it!"

They made the journey down the dune quickly, the steep slope ensuring the journey was brief. As the gradient evened they approached the now scattered balloons, and proceeded to wrangle one each, dragging them as near as they were able to each other, trying to avoid stepping on large pieces of sail that would be caught up in the easterly wind and drag the ships away a few yards before they were able to tug it back towards the others. With all three balloons together, and the other three slowly drifting away into the desert, they soon set about puzzling how to operate the devices.

Peculier, who claimed to have once used such a device earlier in his life instructed them on how to get into the harness, a mechanism that tied them down to a saddle, leaving the legs hanging in the open air. He told them of how to tug on a chain dangling from the small metal boxes above their heads and unleash a gout of flame to send the balloon higher, and how to maneuver the sails and steer the rudders behind them in order to control their direction. They took off their packs and strapped them below their saddles, giving move freedom and a welcoming feeling of substance under them as they sat. Peculier then decided that he'd given them sufficient training and made his way to his own balloon, which had now drifted some ways away. Honeydew, unsure of what to do, gave the chain hanging from the box above him a tug. It release a burst of flame that heated the air within the envelope, and the mass began to rise. The dwarf gave a wail as Xephos looked up at him.

"Oh gods, I'm flying! I'm flying!" he cried, kicking his legs in their stirrups. "Dwarves were never meant to fly!" his sails were already filling themselves with wind, and he was being pulled towards the east.

Xephos gave his own chain a surreptitious tug, causing a flare of heat to surge into the cavernous balloon. He gave a small start when the ground pulled away from under his feet, and he stopped, the balloon coasting until he pulled on it again, sending him higher. Handling the sail that was strung to the top of the balloon and bottom of the harness he managed with a good deal of fumbling, to grasp the wind, which guided him as he continued to rise, along the length of The Wall.

"Go East along The Wall!" came Peculier's call from below. Xephos looked down to see him beginning to strap himself into the harness of his own balloon. Still holding onto the chain, Xephos let go, realising that he was now seventy yards above the foot of the sand dune. Honeydew was below and ahead of him, sail full and dragging him down The Wall, rising swiftly as he did so. Xephos pulled on his chain again, rising above the height of the stony parapets of The Wall. He dulled the jet when he was high over the broken structure, some three-hundred yards above their starting point. Honeydew was ahead of him by around sixty yards and a similar distance below him. Peculier had risen more quickly, and his experience at the balloon and sail had allowed him to shoot below Honeydew and rise up in front of him, slowing to guide the others down The Wall. Xephos looked back at the ruin of Verigan's Hold, a child's castle buried by a bucketful of sand, towers snapped and hidden below the droves of desert. He felt a weight upon him that felt like it may ground the balloon. This great bastion which held back the Sands for years had been overwhelmed, how would he be able to stop it? he wondered.

The wind carried them east, the sand below them rising up like angry waves to crash down on The Wall, sometimes great arches of sandstone spanned over it like a mighty arm of an unseen creature, and wherever they touched more sand spread. The largest of these arches they saw from leagues off, and was so massive that they passed clean under it without loosing much altitude. In some places The Wall had simple been broken, these areas had fallen before the three of them could reset the Spire, and from these great rends issued leprous plains of sand, suffocating thick forests that hugged The Wall, the tallest treetops the only thing visible in some places.

Hours passed, and the sun was beginning to sink, the furious orb shining in their faces as it dipped towards the eastern horizon. Xephos looked down below him to where a massive dune had forced itself up against The Wall, the tip spilling over in an avalanche of gold. In spite of his time in the air, his feet still tingled when he looked down, seeing his legs in the stirrups seemingly with nothing to stop him from falling. Another jet of flame shot into the balloon as he cranked the chain, refilling the bulk above him with hot air to maintain his altitude.

Of to the north side of The Wall, a second glow appeared on the horizon, a miasma of white and blue light. As the balloons glided further east they began to pass the aura somewhere off to the north, directly left of where Xephos sat facing east along The Wall. The light seemed to emanate from somewhere in the foothills of a far-off mountain range, and as they passed in by they also passed over a long pipe of stone and glass, the twinkling of redstone currents appearing within. The structure stretched off towards the glow, it's path straight and unhindered by trees, hills, or valleys, for a clear way had been made for it. Xephos was staring at the strange pipe, -as thing as a boat's hull, as he could see it from the air- and then following it towards the distant glow he realised that the far off light must be the Spire. He was so caught up in the sight of it that he almost didn't see Peculier beginning to veer off to the north side of The Wall. Scrambling to remember how to re-direct the balloon and then doing so, he and Honeydew, off to his right, followed Peculier over The Wall and heading north-east over The Wall-woods. Ahead of them a small mountain seemed to rise out of the forest, twisted trees covering it's rocky slopes, yet as the balloons neared it soon appeared that the mountain was no such a thing at all.

It was instead a castle. Huge, with great crenelated walls and high plateaued walks and battlements, but it was also old, and in ruins. The walls that remained were nearly entirely covered in moss and lichen, many had spindly trees growing from their cracks, entire sections of walls had fallen away and been filled with dirt by the passage of time. Peculier was flying them directly towards the ancient keep, a monolith of green with a harbor stretching off into the distance on the other side. They flew towards the highest plateau on the castle, a great open walk atop a high wall, the castle continuing to rise behind it, and jutting from the flat plain of stone was large tree growing from another platform level with the walk, the platform built into the wall and hanging over the rest of the derelict castle below. The tree itself was white, it's leaves, fully grown were a whitish hue that caught golden fire in the light of the setting sun. Xephos realised with a discomfort that he judged was considerably less than Honeydew's that the tree was not white because of it's leaves, but because it was totally shrouded in a thick spider's web.

Peculier was allowing his balloon to sink as he grew nearer, and was drawing away one of his sails to slow himself for landing. Xephos too allowed his ballon to drop while he pulled in his sail, when he looked up he saw that Honeydew had done his considerably more quickly in an attempt to keep as far away from the Spider Tree for as long and possible. Peculier reached the walk first, pulling in his second sail completely and drifting slightly as he gently drifted to the stone floor. Xephos came in lower, having to give his balloon a couple bursts of heat to get him level with the walk and as he came in he stepped out of the stirrups and set them onto the stones. The sail tried to drag him across the long stone plaza as he wrangled it, ending up tangling him in a spry sapling sprouting from the stones. Peculier helped Xephos to untangle and the unfasten himself from the harness, himself having tied off his balloon to another tree that had grown from the old castle. Xephos untied his pack from the bottom of the saddle and watched as Honeydew began to come in for landing. It was obvious from the beginning he was going to need help, as he was too high to land as Xephos had and was not pulling in his sail in as to land like Peculier had done, so both stepped away from their own ships to aid him. He came over the plaza, the layout of which below was shaped like a shallow capital 'T', the bottom faced north towards the mountains,the Spider Tree growing at it's tip. Honeydew came in and was beginning to dip enough for Xephos to reach up and grab his leg when a wild gust caught the dwarf's half-furled sail and he was pulled away towards the Spider Tree. Honeydew wailed in horror and yet was unable to stop himself as he slowly collided with the tree, his balloon's envelope nosing into the gossamer threads of spider's silk. Xephos and Peculier rushed over to him as he flailed in his saddle.

"Fuck fuck fuck, I'm covered in spiders!" he cried as he lashed in hysterics.

"Calm down!" Xephos said, he and Peculier leaping up to each grab a leg and drag Honeydew earthward. "You're only covered in dead leaves, you idiot!" Honeydew took a few moments to calm down when they got him free of the balloon, Peculier unfastening his pack as the tall dwarf all but collapsed into Xephos' arms.

"Oh gods, oh gods." he sighed.

"Thank gods there were no spiders." Xephos said. He became aware that he was unarmed and his weapon was fastened to his pack behind him next to his balloon. "I don't feel like sticking around to see where they are."

"The balloon!" Peculier cried as he looked back to the plaza along the walkway. Xephos turned to see his balloon being dragged over the edge of the walk by the envelope. He looked back to the tree where his pack still lay, he'd forgotten to tie it down with Honeydew in danger.

"It doesn't matter Peculier," Xephos said. "if we ever need it again I guess we can go and find it." he turned back towards the tree and picked up Honeydew's heavy pack. He shoved it into the dwarf's arms. "Let's get away from the tree as we gear up, I feel like we could be ambushed if we stay here."

"But my balloon - actually, fuck it." Honeydew said. "Leave it Peculier," The old knight glanced at the dwarf and the left the balloon to drift over the edge of the merlons and out to the air beyond, staring after it with reluctance. The three ran back to the plaza with Honeydew and his pack and stopped across from the Spider Tree's outcropping so Xephos could don his own.

"Well that was nicely done!" Xephos commented. "Apart from Honeydew just then that went very well. Our balloons are just completely lost now though, that was a disaster." he laid his hand on the hilt of his sabre, now at his side again. "So what are we looking for in this tree? Adaephon wasn't very clear when he told us to come here, he just said for us to come here."

"Go to the Spider Tree." Honeydew looked at the tree and shivered. So far they hadn't seen anything to merit the name other than the webs, but he was sure that as soon as they got near the tree again a swarm of black-bodied spiders would drop on top of them. He put his axe and sword through his belt. "I'd rather _not_ go to the Spider Tree if I could choose."

"Man up." Xephos laughed.

"Were you alright up there, heroes? In the balloons I mean." Peculier asked.

"It wasn't to difficult." Honeydew said. "It was actually quite pleasant once you got used to it, apart from the Sands."

"It was, wasn't it?" Xephos agreed. "And did you see the Spire glowing to our left a few miles back?"

"I did." Peculier nodded. "Good to know that we were able to save some of The Wall, but what remains will not stop the Sands, only make sure it doesn't spread as quickly as it was planned to."

"That's something I guess." Xephos sighed. "If you guys are ready I think we should examine the Spider Tree."

Honeydew stiffened.

"Oh go on then." he breathed, and fell in behind Peculier and Xephos as the walked across the high plaza and began across the wide walkway to the Spider Tree.

"This tree is old." Xephos said as they drew closer the ancient knotted trunk, just passing under the first branches. "Very old, almost as old as the castle we're on. Look, it was planted too." he pointed ahead to the base of the tree, where gnarled roots dug into a wide circle of dirt ringed with stones.

"What is this place anyway?" Honeydew asked. "It is old, but it doesn't look like any of the Precursor rubbish we've seen before."

"I hear spiders." Peculier said. They stopped dead. Honeydew had his weapons drawn and was casting about before Xephos could even hear the stuttered hissing of the giant arachnids above them.

"Easy, they're usually friendly in daylight if you don't hurt them." Xephos cautioned.

"There isn't much daylight left." Honeydew was still looking about wildly when the first huge spider dropped out of the tree on top of him. He cried out and threw himself backwards onto the stone floor, his weight smashing onto the spider as he landed. It gave an outraged squeak before he rolled off it and hacked open it's abdomen with a single axe-blow. "They are _not_ friendly!" he yelled. "_Definitely, definitely not friendly!"_ More spiders the size of large dogs dropped from the tree.

"Just take them out!" Xephos yelled as he ripped his sabre from it's sheath. He and Peculier made to fall upon the five new enemies when Honeydew barreled into them, swinging madly with axe and sword. All five turned to him and as the first one leapt at him his axe smashed it aside, his sword piercing the abdomen of another held beneath his boot. Xephos raced in and slashed the third in half midair as it leaped at Honeydew. The remaining two turned to him now and warily held their ground before both came at once, one leaping at his neck and another rushing for his legs. Bending body and sword as one, Xephos flicked his sabre across the lower spider's neck, severing it as he twisted his body, leaning to the side to dodge the other spider's pounce. Continuing his momentum and throwing his whole body into the motion he threw himself into a horizontal spin as the spider flew past him, completing the spin with a slash of his sabre, the spider skidded across the stones motionless.

"That's how you deal with spiders. You just give 'em a pat." Honeydew said disgustedly.

"You're certainly getting used to that new sword." Peculier said, sounding impressed. "What you just did there was very effective."

"Oh?" Xephos looked at the two most recently killed spiders. "I didn't really think about it, just lived in the moment I guess."

"If you can do that and this is the result, then you are becoming part of the weapon yourself."

Xephos recalled how the sabre had once burned like a flame for Jock, and wondered if it would ever do the same for him.

"I would've left one for you if I'd been able to think clearly." Xephos apologised to Peculier.

"Don't be sorry for killing spiders." Honeydew said, kicking a hairy black carapace. "No more seem to be coming, so let's use this time to find whatever the fuck we're supposed to."

Xephos straightened and turned to the tree, looking for anything unusual. He spotted it almost immediately.

"Um," he said.

"Oh hello!" Honeydew exclaimed as he stepped past Xephos and closer to the yellowed skeleton sitting at the foot of the tree. "Who's this fella?"

The skeleton, like everything in the castle seemed old. And while not nearly as old as the tree itself, it had certainly been there for decades, and parts of the roots grew all through the bones, shackling the body to the earth.

"There's no way this could have been here this long." Xephos said. "Look at the roots, it must've been sitting here for thirty or so years! Bones couldn't last that long, could they?"

"No, you're right, but I have a suspicion." Honeydew said as he stood over the body.

"What?" asked Xephos as the dwarf bent forward and cautiously licked the forehead of the sitting skeleton.

"Why would you do that?" Xephos asked as Honeydew stood and seemed to savor the flavor thoughtfully.

"Because it's as I thought." Honeydew said through gritted teeth. He turned and spat, it surprisingly coming out the same golden yellow as the skeleton. "It's made of sandstone, not bone at all."

"What?" Peculier said. "Can you be sure?"

"He's sure." Xephos said flatly.

"Don't question me about my stones. I might be tall enough to pass as a human in a crowd, but I'm still a dwarf and don't you forget it!" Honeydew finished hotly. "I _am _sure. It's not made of bone. It is sandstone." he cleared with throat. "Does that mean anything? Was this just a sculpture or something or was this bloke ever alive at some point?"

"I do not know." Peculier admitted.

"Well what has he got to do with us then?" Xephos asked, kneeling before the skeleton's ribcage, now bound in a corset of roots. "What's he got to do with it?" he said as he stared into the skull's open sockets.

"Wait a minute," Honeydew said. He moved closer to the skeleton and peered dow into it's ribcage from above. "there's something in there!"

"Wait, really?" Xephos made to peer closer when Honeydew brought his fist onto the skeleton's collarbones, smashing a hole in it. The force snapped the neck and sent the skull toppling down roots, coming to rest with half it's face cracked or totally smashed.

"What are you doing?" Xephos said, laughing. The question was repeated by Peculier, who seemed less amused by a mark.

"Getting," Honeydew sighed, reaching a thick arm into the hollow he'd made. "this." he pulled from the skeleton a long leather cylinder almost identical to the one Adaephon had given Peculier.

"A map case!" Xephos gasped. Honeydew tossed it to him.

"We should look at what's inside away from the tree." Honeydew suggested. "It's going to get dark very soon and I don't much like the sound of the spiders up there."

"A good idea." Peculier agreed. "Come along, daylight is fading." They wasted no time in crossing back to the plaza where Peculier's balloon was tethered. Long shadows like the teeth of a comb were being cast by the merlons and the east end of the plaza as the sun began to touch the horizon. "I remember this place from Adaephon's stories." Peculier mused. "I even came here once as a child."

"Right let's look at the map while there's light to read it by." Honeydew said as Xephos took the cap off the cylinder and pulled from it a roll of yellowed paper. Carefully he unrolled it revealing the image of a tall tower surrounded by a wall flying the colours of the Templars. It sat on a headland and south -at the top of the map- of it lay what could only be The Wall. From the tower a red dotted line led over The Wall and ended, as though it needed some other map to complete it.

"Have a look at this. I don't recognise it at all." Xephos handed the map to Honeydew and Peculier.

"Hmm. . .It looks like it's in the same style as Karpath's map." Honeydew said. "Peculier, get the other map out and see if they link up."

"While you two do that, I'll go look over the surrounding area," Xephos looked to the east end of the plaza. "see If anywhere looks like that tower on the map."

"Good idea." Peculier agreed as he pulled his father's map from his own case. Xephos turned and began walking to the crenelations as the other two talked behind him. ". . .Yes they definitely look like they are of the same style, it probably is made by Karpath, but there is no way they match up. Look, the alignment of the line is all wrong. . ."

Xephos came to the edge to the plaza, face east into the setting sun. Resting against the merlons he looked over the surroundings. At the foot of the high walls of the castle wide avenues of now pitted and mossy stone stretched to the water of the harbor the towers overlooked, the sandbars of low-tide marring their red-gold shine in the sunset. The stone turned to docks extending out into the waters, and island of shore a tower stood broken half way up, the top lying in a pile of broken stone halfway into the ocean. All about stood crumbling remains of what could've been homes or buildings, now husks covered in moss. Below the north-facing side of the keep the forest was beginning to overcome the remains of the town, trees thickly standing above and about building remains where ancient canals ran from the harbor through the structures and disappeared under the trees. There may well once have been a huge city here, now swallowed by the forest, with only the castle and docks holding it off. It reminded Xephos of Mistral City, and with a second glance below he wondered if Swampy had any hand in what had occurred here. Remembering his purpose, Xephos began scanning the horizon, and east across the harbor there stood a stony finger pointing accusingly at the sky, a huge but tattered pennant hanging from it's tip, stirring meekly in the breeze. Behind it The Wall continued it's journey east, oft punctured by holes or overshadowed by great arcs.

"Aha!" he cried. "Honeydew! Peculier! It's over here!" he turned to watch the other two run across to him. "There, across the water." he pointed.

Honeydew looked at the map and the the building.

"Yes, that's it! That's the building on the map." he cried, rolling up the map and placing it back in the tube, taking Peculier's too as he shoved it at him.

"How do we get there before dark?" Peculier asked. "The sun is half set."

"The harbor is pretty shallow at the moment, look at the sandbars. We might be able to wade across." Xephos said. "But how do we get down?"

"Using the stairs." Honeydew said. "This way! Follow me!" he said, starting at a brisk pace to the right side of the plaza. He led them to where a set of stairs wound their way down the high face of the green walls. "Did you really not see these?" Honeydew asked.

"No." Xephos admitted.

"You sure you can see alright?" Honeydew laughed. "Come on, we need to move."

They followed him down the stairs as they doubled back and led down to the ground at the foot of the high walls. The decent was long, but when the three of them walked through an alley between two tumble-down houses to the waterfront, where it was obvious the water here was not as deep as it been in the days of whatever kingdom they were standing in the bones of. Here below the castle just looking up at the monolith and being surrounded by shells of people's lives gave the area an oppressive atmosphere, like there were memories moving all about them of a time when this place had been more than a ruin in the woods.

"The water is much lower than it would've been whenever this place was being used." Honeydew observed, peering over the edge of the wharf. "It's a ten foot drop and then sand. We should probably just drop on down, take off our boots and wade across the flats to the other side."

"Is that how we're going to do it?" Xephos asked.

"Just do it man!" Honeydew grunted, swinging himself over the edge of the stone jetty and dangling from the edge. He began to climb down the pitted stones that had been used to make the dock. "Aren't we supposed to be hurrying?" Xephos rolled his eyes and followed his example just as Peculier himself did the same.

On the thin beach they all took off their boots and began to cross the shallow bay towards the tower as the sun set. More than once someone cried out about stepping on a crab, and halfway across the sun was gone and the moon was beginning to shine, with the water only and their knees between the sandbars they were sticking to. The light of the sun was still glowing over the horizon as they stood on the other side of the water, walking up onto a dune at the foot the wall surrounding the tower.

"New socks should've been an investment." Honeydew grumbled as he pulled his own hole riddled woolens over his feet. "Do we have any idea what this place is anyway? Or what we're doing here? Gods, Adaephon wasn't very specific about what we're supposed to be doing."

"I think we need to just go inside and look around." Xephos said.

"The two maps we have don't add up, so there may be another one we have to find to link them together." Peculier offered.

"Maps maps maps! I've spent months looking for fucking maps!" he growled.

Xephos stood and looked up at the tower, his own boots on his feet. The tower was segmented at each story, growing thinner as it grew taller, with decorative fountains dropping water from the top floor to the next until it ended in a pool that ringed the tower.

"It's definitely Templars, look at the banner; the Crimson Cross." he looked over to The Wall and realised that the dune that they stood on did not come from the beach. "Oh my gods, look at the size of the hole in The Wall over here! Jebus!" the others stood quickly at his curses and stared over to where a half-mile off The Wall had been ripped open for a mile across, the Sands coming through like a sluggish flood-tide.

"What is this?" Peculier babbled. "We'll have to fix it later."

"We are not mending this. This makes the Breach look pathetic!" Xephos said, stopping to look at the sky, where the stars shining, and the moon's glow was becoming stronger than the sun's. "Oh gods it's getting dark." he breathed. "Let's go inside the tower. Maybe there will be something there that will help us know where we are going." he did not wait for the others as he headed for the gate into the courtyard surrounding the tower, his footprints leaving small craters in the sand, turned silver by moonlight. He entered the entryway below a rusted portcullis, hanging low above him. Within, the courtyard would once have been beautiful, elegant even, with lithe trees and rosebushes near meandering paths between fountains and trickles of water falling from the tiered tower above. Time and neglect had been less than sweet to it, and the rosebushes, now as overgrown as the grass, bore no flowers. The fountains were cracked and over-flowing, their water still running by some miracle, and the trees were clawing at the low grey walls with slightly withered branches. Ahead of Xephos a path led on toward the tower, the double-doors hanging open and broken on their hinges like sometime long ago there had been a struggle here. Xephos followed the stony path between clawing thorns of wild rosebushes toward the doorway, aware of the others close behind him, when something stumbled into the doorframe. Hand already on his bow, Xephos pulled it from his back and nocked an arrow into it with trained fingers, drawing back and letting loose as the skeleton attempted to outdraw him. The undead failed, and the arrow shattered it's breastbone and spine, sending it clattering to the floor. Honeydew was striding towards the dark doorframe with his sword drawn as Xephos cautiously drew another. Peculier stepped past him, his own steel bare.

"How many more do you think could be in there?" Xephos asked.

"It's dark and old. Could be full of them." Peculier sniffed, looking up at the peak of the tower. "We may have to fight our way through."

At that moment two more skeletons appeared in the doorway, one baring a crossbow and the other a bow. They made to fire on Peculier and Xephos when Honeydew stepped out from behind the doors and hewed their skulls in two before either could fire a shot. As he did so an arrow shot past him from within, tearing a nick in his forearm. Cursing, he retreated to the side of the doorway as Xephos and Peculier hurried away from it to either side.

"Why am I using melee weapons when we have new awesome arrows?" Honeydew asked himself and he wiped the blood from his arm.

"How is your arm?" Peculier asked.

"It's good. It's good." Honeydew said dismissively as he produced two torches from his pack. "Keep an eye open, I'm going to throw a torch in there to light things up. Oh, and since you don't have a bow, Peculier, you'll have to hold one for us when we go in alright?" he added.

"Yes, it's fine. Gods, I wish we had shields though." he grumbled as Honeydew lit both torches with his fantastical flint and steel. Taking one and tossing it to Peculier across the doorway he threw the other into the darkness of the tower. Arrows were fired as the torch filled the abyss with an orange glow. It gave a hiss as it landed on the damp floor, lighting up the gaunt faces of a dozen zombies and a handful of demonic skeletons, clumsily reloading as they stood in the ruins of a once lavish room, water pooling at their feet.

"Oh gods, it's absolutely crawling in here." Xephos exclaimed as Honeydew loaded his crossbow, three bolts at once. The two stepped into the doorway before the archers could re-knock their instruments, Peculier holding the torch high in one hand and sword in the other. Xephos fired at a distant skeleton, the steel-tipped arrow shooting right through it's skull and into the eye of a zombie behind. Both fell dead as Xephos laughed at his good luck. Honeydew aimed towards the silhouettes around the torchlight and fired his crossbow, two of the arrow finding marks, one in a zombie's shin and the other in the lower spine of a skeleton. The horde began to shamble forwards as they all but dropped their bows and drew steel.

"Stay with us Peculier, we need you light." Xephos said as they moved forward. Honeydew ducked out of the light to shatter a skeleton that tried to draw back it's bow, it's severed body clattering to the ground as it's legs tottered for a moment then followed suit. Xephos made a wide slash before them as a group of zombies abled forwards. His attack sent two stumbling back as another's head fell to the floor and Peculier's stabbed a fourth in the chest.

"It's crawling with monsters!" Xephos cried as they fought their way to the torch lying on the floor.

"You're supposed to be a hero, act like one!" Honeydew yelled. They'd killed off all the skeletal archers, and were managing to keep the zombies at bay. Holding the torch he'd picked up off the ground, Xephos looked around and counted eight undead still around them, shying away from the torchlight and occasionally trying to dart in to swipe at them. Xephos' slash cut off a decaying hand, but there came a cry from behind him as the zombie leapt back. His head whipped around as Honeydew was dragged into the crowd of undead by his shoulders, his axe swinging wildly catching one by the knee and sending it dragging him to the ground. Xephos and Peculier were on them before the horde fell upon him. They kicked them away and slew three before hauling the dwarf to his feet. Leaping into the dark, Peculier killed one as it tried to retreat and Honeydew buried his axe in the shoulder of the penultimate before Xephos could slice open the chest of the last.

"Shit, that was close." Honeydew panted. He was untouched other than the cut on his arm and a shallow zombie bite to his shoulder. He glanced at the bite and grimaced. "I hope we've got some ointment, or that could infect and I might die and end up undead myself. That would be less than ideal."

"Yes I think it would be." laughed Xephos.

"What is this place anyway?" Honeydew asked. "Some kind of watchtower?"

"I think it was more formal than that." Peculier said as he walked near one of the walls. With no bodies save their own to block the light, they were able to see all around the round room. The walls were adorned with rotting tapestries, and bookcases were stuffed with unreadable books. Below their feet, the floor was covered in a shallow pool of water, not deep enough to wet their feet, with ancient rugs fading and rotting in the wet.

"Some kind of study?" Honeydew asked, walking towards a decaying desk. "Like a library maybe?"

"I don't think so." Xephos said looking around. "Where to now?"

"Here." Peculier said, his footsteps in the water ringing from the dripping walls as he approached a wide, beam-less stone stairway across the room. "We climb the tower." he said holding the torch up and staring ahead into the dark above. Honeydew sighed as he walked in darkness to recover their dropped bows, the doorway across the room forming a white square that reflected across the water.

He followed the light Xephos bore as he headed to Peculier, mounting the foot of the stairs. They ascended cautiously, weapons at the ready as they mounted the next floor. The floor here was damp and wooden, and each step felt like it might fall through the rotten wood. As he laid his weight onto one of his feet the floor suddenly gave out under one of Xephos' feet and he fell to the ground, right leg hanging in space below as he tried to cushion himself as he fell to his knee on the floorboards. The sudden sound and his cry alerted something in the darkness, and from the ceiling above two fat spiders dropped either side of the three of them. The spiders tried to leap at Xephos as he struggled, one getting caught by the toe of Honeydew's boot, sending it sprawling across the floor, while the other was impaled along the length of Peculier's blade. The dwarf fell on the spider with his sword as Xephos pulled himself from the hole in the floor.

"Are you alright?" Peculier asked, casting about for other spiders, his eyes never touching Xephos.

"I'm alright." he breathed, looking cautiously down the hole he'd made in the rather thick floorboards. "I just think that it might be an idea to watch our steps in this place. It's falling apart."

"Is this a ladder over here?" Honeydew asked as he cautiously crossed to the center of the room. A thick beam spanned from floor to ceiling seemingly cut from a single tree trunk. Bolted to the beam was a ladder that looked about as strong as the floor did. It rose up high towards the ceiling and disappeared in darkness. "Gods, don't tell me this is the only way up."

"I think it might be." Xephos said, stepping towards the foot of the ladder. "Keep you hands and feet where the rungs meet the rest of the ladder. If this thing is as old as the rest of the building they are probably very weak."

"If they _are_ as old as the rest of this place then we have no business climbing it." Honeydew shook his head. "What the fuck are we doing?"

"Nowhere to go but up." Peculier said. Honeydew grumbled and pushed past Xephos to the ladder.

"Stick to my arse, if I fall I want someone to catch me." he placed a cautious foot on the second rung.

"A good idea, then you can bring the rest of us down with you." Xephos smiled as Honeydew looked back irritably, yet followed after him as the dwarf started up the ladder, it's frame creaking in disapproval at the sudden traffic of three men. The climb in the dark was awkward and slow, Honeydew having to carry the only torch they could bring, making the climb literally using only one arm. The other torch lay isolated on the floor below, seemingly far distant as the ceiling came into view of the golden orb they hung within. Honeydew scrambled quickly through the portal in the ceiling and onto the top floor of the tower, just getting to his feet as Xephos stepped off the ladder and into the small room. Of the tiered rings of the tower they now stood within the span of the top one, eight yards across and windowless, the torch the only source of light within the room.

"Okay, is this it then?" Xephos asked as Peculier got off the ladder. "What's here?" he cast around the room until his eyes fell on a desk pushed up against the wall. Atop the desk sat an old glass case, covered in dust, shrouding it's contents. Either side of the case stood two ancient weapons, on the left was a steel-headed multi-pronged halberd, and on the right a heavy mace with five heavy flanges spaced around it's long shaft.

"What's in the case?" Honeydew asked as Xephos walked took the torch from him and stepped towards the case.

"There's some amazing weapons." Xephos commented, grasping the halberd and weighing it in his hand as he stood near the case, the weapon's spiked head beginning just above his own. He leaned the halberd back against the wall and held the torch above him as he wiped the dust from the low case, the fine grey particles running off the edges and onto the desk, revealing a scrap of paper stained a familiar shade of yellow. "Ah, it's another map! At least we know that we've got the right idea of what we're doing." Honeydew took the torch as he and Peculier tried to push themselves closer as Xephos tried to lift the glass which refused to budge. "For gods' sake." he breathed, taking his hands from the case and grasping both to the mace to his right. "Back up a sec'." he said to the others as they stepped back while he sent the heavy mace head crashing into the glass. The old glass shattered easily, sending shards tinkling off the desk and floor. Xephos wordlessly handed the mace to Honeydew as he reached into broken case and took the map piece from it's place on a painted stand.

Xephos looked down on the map with a cringed brow. It, like the first they had found, detailed an area of desert, a thick familiar red-dotted line led a curving path from the bottom of the map, showing The Wall, deeper into the desert. Along it's course it passed an anomaly in the center of the map, seemingly a giant hand in the middle of the desert.

"Here's the map, have a look at that." Xephos said, holding out the sheet. "What do you make of it?" he asked.

"I think it would link up with the other two we have." Peculier said. He pointed to where the dotted line led off the bottom of the map. "This looks like it would link up with the line that led from the picture of this tower in the map we found at the tree." as he said this Honeydew took out the two maps within the map case and by torchlight he positioned them around the new map, the one depicting the tower below and Karpath's four fragments to the right, the snaking red line linking the three charts together perfectly.

"This looks like it will lead us deeper into the desert." Xephos commented. "What is this though?" he asked, pointing at the ominous hand in the center of the new map as Honeydew began to put the others away. The dwarf looked again at the large hand shape in the desert.

"It reminds me of those notes that the Dark Brotherhood sends to their hits." he commented.

"The assassin's guild?" Xephos asked.

""We know.". That's what they say don't they, to spook people?" Honeydew feigned horror. "They know, Xephos! They know that we. . ._stole the pink panties!"_ he laughed as he rolled up the map and placed inside the leather tube with the others.

"Right, so according to the map we go over The Wall and into the desert -well I guess The Wall's not there anymore- and head deeper into the desert. Then I guess we follow the map and go right past this hand. . .thing, further into the Sands until we find the place that the map leads to."

"There is the possibility of more maps, however unlikely." Peculier said.

"They link up pretty well." Honeydew said.

"That being said I think we should investigate the hand." Peculier stated. "Who knows what we could find there."

"That sounds like a very good reason to avoid it." Honeydew sighed.

"Well we're making progress at least." Xephos said. "Let's get down. I think we should find somewhere to spend the night outside here before we head into the desert."

"I'm taking this." Honeydew said, idly lifting the mace which he had not let go of since Xephos had handed it to him. "It's good steel. Either of you want to take the bill?" he said, gesturing to the halberd that Xephos had left.

"I'll give it a try." Xephos shrugged, stepping over to take it from the wall. "I don't know how effective I'll be with it. The only pole weapon I've had any experience with was quaterstaves."

"Oh yeah, but you were good with them. And there's a point on the butt of it too, so you could use it like a staff and get by well enough." Honeydew remarked.

"Someday you'll have to tell me about your past together." Peculier said. "I'd like to know how you ended up out wandering the wilderness that led you to my inn at Terrorrvale, and your story before that."

"It's a long and sordid affair that I am afraid would sicken even the hardest stomach." Honeydew sighed in faux nostalgia.

"We'll fill you in after this is over." Xephos grinned. "Now let's get out of here before this place collapses."

The trip down was not much quicker than their toil upwards, though Honeydew and Xephos had to drop their newly acquired weapons some twenty yards through the dark, where they landed with dull crashed in the small halo of light still cast by the torch they'd left below. Half way down the ladder Honeydew gave out a curse and the torch he carried spun down past them to join it's twin at the foot of the ladder. The climb in the dark was as trepidatious as it was slow, though they finally made their way cautiously onto the rotting wooden floor below. Xephos' halberd was standing point-first in the floor, with Honeydew's mace lying nearby, it's heavy head casting a massive dent into the soft floorboards. Gathering their tools and torches the three made their careful way back across the floor to the stairway, giving the area where Xephos had nearly fallen through a wide berth. After they descended the stairs they made a hurried exit from the lower story, feet splashing in the shallow pool, Xephos nearly tripping over a corpse in their flight to the doorway.

The moon high and bright, a silver glow casting over the spans of sand outside the tower's walls. They climbed back up the dune they'd stood on after crossing the bay, looking across the new expanse of dunes between them and the breach in The Wall.

"I would guess we venture through the breach then." Peculier sighed, staring at the massive rend in The Wall like it was an old evil he'd been avoiding.

"We should at least sleep until morning." Xephos suggested. "I feel we will need all the rest we can get."

"Where though?" Honeydew asked looking about, suddenly going very stiff.

"I reckon probably under the wall of the tower, no fires though." Xephos replied, not noticing Honeydew's lack of movement. "We can't risk giving our position away if anyone's watching."

"Are you alright, Honeydew?" Peculier asked as Honeydew stared blindly off into the night.

"There's an enderman over there." he said in a strangled voice. "I. . .I-"

"Did you look directly at it?" Peculier asked in a deathly serious tone as Honeydew continued to stare out into the night.

". . .yes." his voice was a whisper.

"Oh jebus. . ." Xephos sighed. "Are you still looking at it?"

"I haven't broken eye contact with it." Honeydew's voice was like smoke from a newly extinguished wick. "It's staring at me. Oh gods, it's looking right at me."

"_Don't break eye contact."_ Xephos said firmly, turning to Peculier, trying desperately to not look to where Honeydew was staring across the bay, but even so he thought he glanced a tall dark figure standing totally still, glaring across at them with glowing purple eyes. "What do we do?" he asked Peculier.

"I don't know, I only know what I've heard from stories about endermen."

"That's not encouraging." Xephos racked his brain for how they could escape this situation. The stories of endermen were usually saved for around campfires to frighten each other, and the outcomes of the tales did nothing to encourage their results for this situation.

". . .oh gods, guys I can't do this. It's breaking me." Honeydew whimpered.

Xephos whipped around to face him, still staring wild eyed off into the distance. "You can't look away from it or it will come for you, you know that!" he hissed. "Don't look away for even a moment. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead." he finished.

"Maybe he should." Peculier said lowly.

"What!?" Xephos rounded on him. There was a low, guttural growling coming across the water now. "That's suicide. You know what happens in the tale when they look away? The enderman appears behind them and rips them open!" he roared at Peculier.

"Oh gods. . ." Honeydew moaned, knees shaking. "It's fucking eyes. Guys it's looking right at me."

"That will bring it right to us, we cant fight it if it's over there!" Peculier pointed angrily over the water. "With all of us we can kill it, we just need to be quick. Honeydew, break eye contact!"

Xephos turned to Honeydew, who was shaking visibly. "Don't do it!" he yelled.

"_Do it!"_ Peculier yelled over him, drawing his sword as he did so.

"I can't do this!" Honeydew hung in space for a moment before falling to the ground, covering his eyes as he landed curled in a ball.

"_Dammit!"_ Xephos roared. He swung his gaze across to the old harbor, but where the figure was stood there was only a faint vapor of purple wisps. Time seemed to move in slow motion as from behind Xephos there came a distorted noise as something landed on the sand behind Honeydew. Time still seemed sluggish as Xephos blindly swung his halberd around as he turned. He saw as the spiked head traveled about the tall spindly form of the enderman hunching above Honeydew, a stick-thin arm raised with sharp claws ready to come down and sherd the quivering dwarf. It's bulbous eyes glowed and evil shade of flaring purple as it's heavy jaw hung open, a loud growl filling the air as it fixed Honeydew in it's glare. The head of Xephos' halberd hammered into the side of the enderman's bony ribcage, and with a muffled grunt it vanished in a cloud of purple vapor.

"Defend Honeydew!" Xephos shouted as he gripped the shaft of his weapon, stepping over the dwarf, scanning the terrain as Peculier did the same. "Don't let it sneak up on us-" The same strange noise occurred as the enderman appeared before Xephos, charging on bony limbs while uttering a twisted scream. It's arms swung wildly as it came on him, Xephos batter one claw away with the shaft of his halberd and drove the spike on it's butt up into the enderman's armpit. It gave a scream and once more vanished only to reappear in the same moment behind him in front of Peculier. The knight's reaction was instant, he lashed out, kicking the monster's knee in and ducking away from a swipe as the enderman's leg gave away and it fell. Before it had the chance it teleport away Peculier had driven the point of his estoc through the side of it's ribcage, piercing it's lungs and heart in one blow. He withdrew his blade and lay poised to retaliate as the enderman let limp, growl turning to a strangled death rattle before going still and silent. Xephos stepped around the still immobile Honeydew to stare at the creature. He recoiled at the blood that leaked from it's wounds, and purple as it's glaring eyes.

"Is it dead?" he asked.

"If that didn't kill it I doubt there is much that can." Peculier coughed.

"What the fuck was that, man?" Xephos spat. "Getting him to look away? I only just managed to save him when it reappeared!"

"What else could we have done?" Peculier said in a dark tone. "And look, he is alive."

"That's no excuse!" Xephos roared. "If you take crazy risks like that we're all going to die, we _can't_ take risks. Our mission is too important."

"Where's the enderman?" Honeydew said as he slowly sat up. Xephos dropped his halberd and was at his side in a moment.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fuck, _no!"_ he swore. "Jebus, no I am not! staring at that fucking thing, it was just staring back. . .and it's eyes were like they were staring inside me, even though it was so far away."

"It's okay, we killed it." Xephos grimaced. "Look, it's there." he pointed off to Peculier, standing over the corpse. "It was a stupid thing though, looking away. We could've thought of something else-"

"Oh, fuck off I was even listening to what you two were saying!" Honeydew tried to get to his feet. "You try having a stare off with one of those bastards and last as long as I did! It wasn't a fucking choice!" he groaned as he brushed the sand from his side, staring down at the enderman.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Xephos asked, trying to avoid looking at Peculier.

"Oh, I'll probably not get any sleep tonight or any night for the next week, but aside from some traumatic flashbacks I think I'll be just fine."

"Well we should still try for sleep." Xephos said. "We can't look at them if we're asleep."

"Suddenly I feel very tired." Honeydew commented. "I wish I'd been the one to kill this bastard." he kicked the shoulder of the enderman, sending it sliding down the slope for a foot. "But I hope that I don't get the chance to try again."


	38. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter38

Chapter 38: The Hand

The night was understandably less than restful. The three companions had made rudimentary camp at the foot of the wall surrounding the tall tower in the shelter of tree branches that probed over from the other side. The long grass here was not yet covered in sand, and offered some comfort for what remained of the night. They ate quietly below the wall, and at one time Honeydew grew so restless that he got up and dragged the slain enderman's body to the water's edge and hurled it into the water so he didn't need to see it. Sleep came quickly afterwards, but did not remain unbroken, with each of the three swapping out roles of keeping watch hourly while the other two tossed or periodically woke. Peculier was beginning his second watch, he being the first to take the vigil, when the sun began to make the horizon blush a golden red. The other two were woken and ate once more from their packs before getting to their feet and making ready to leave across The Wall, the three of them found themselves disturbed to find the once far distant sand was now only feet from their camp. The sun was gracing the tops of distant hills as they began across unnervingly unfamiliar dunes towards the mammoth breach in The Wall. Xephos stood atop a higher dune halfway towards The Wall looking into the breach, point of his new halberd dug into the sand as the other two made their way up the slope, Honeydew held the huge mace in his hands, looking grim.

"You ready to hit that desert?" Honeydew gave a psychotic grin. "You ready to cause some havoc?" he crested the dune and gave an eager growl, passing Xephos as he headed down the dune, sticking to the high ground of the dune's spur. In spite of speaking to him, his eyes didn't touch Xephos.

Watching him only momentarily, Xephos turned to Peculier as he reached the top of the dune. The knight looked determined, if slightly haggard, his palm resting on the pommel of his sword as he came to Xephos' side.

"I should have liked to have brought cloaks with us, light ones, to keep the heat off." he said.

"It's not hot at all though." Xephos commented flatly. A couple of months ago there'd still been snow on the trees outside Mistral City, and a coolness still hung in the air even here.

"Not here, no. The sand is the only thing that's spread here so far, but in there, you'll see what I mean." he was staring off into the Sands again, eyes staring at something that he seemed to see, yet not want to.

"We should've traveled by night then." Xephos said briskly, remembering Peculier's actions from last night as he started down the slope, Honeydew standing ahead at the peak of a lower crest.

"Night is worse." Peculier stated bluntly as he fell in beside Xephos. "The temperature drops so much that spit can freeze before in hits the ground sometimes. One researcher even noted at one point it was so cold that the moisture in his breath froze and turned to frost. He was icebitten in his fingers and two of his comrades died that night. If there were any rain in the desert it would be covered in snow in a nightly rainstorm." he finished as they came to Honeydew.

"The way flattens out from here through The Wall." Honeydew said, pointing behind him through the gap, wide enough for over five-hundred men abreast to pass through. "From the look of the maps we go through an head thirty degrees from south into the desert. If the scale on the map is any good we should see that hand-thing and know to change our course when we reach it."

"We change our course _after_ we check it out." Xephos said firmly. Honeydew grunted and turned away. Xephos stared at his back. After he'd gazed into the eyes of the enderman he'd been different. Xephos worried that he'd been harmed in some way that he could not heal. "So," he said, making to fall in with his friend. "We need to head on through The Wall . . . which isn't there anymore."

"Oh, it's still there. There's just a ruddy great hole in it." Honeydew smirked.

"Heroes." Peculier spoke up, still standing behind them on the second crest. They turned to face the old man as he walked towards them, holding two water bottles that he'd procured from his light pack. "Before we venture into the desert, make sure you have some water." he said as he held out the leather bottles. Xephos took one, even though the water-skin he had strapped to his back still held more than three quarters of water. Honeydew grabbed his own and immediately unstoppered it.

"Oh, thank you. That's very kind, we need to stay hydrated." he put the bottle to his lips and began drinking before the others could tell him to stop.

"He's given us this for supplies _in_ the desert, not right now!" Xephos cried.

"Huh?" Honeydew asked, taking the bottle from his lips. "I'm thirsty!" he yelled. "I haven't had a cup of tea in months! Jebus!" he threw back his head and took another swig.

Xephos felt himself snap as he yelled.

"Stop drinking it all! I'm not going to share mine when you are dying of thirst!" he spat at the dwarf. He'd been acting so stupidly since the incident last night, and Peculier was becoming reckless.

"Calm down!" Peculier yelled, wresting the water bottle from Honeydew, who seemed to be drinking out of spite now.

"Oi! I'm preloading!" the dwarf protested.

"The desert is a dangerous place, heroes!" Peculier scolded. He looked at both of them with a hard look in his eyes, the rising sun casting a glow off his helm like a crown. He breathed in deeply and spoke again. "I am an old man. Promise me this; If I fall ill, then you must go on without me." his voice bonded them to anything they might then say in response as well as any fetters of iron would have done. He still looked hard enough to drive stakes into the earth, but his age seemed to suddenly reappear, the crow's-feet about his eyes and worn smile-lines looked etched in stone, and his eyes shined indigo like brilliant amethysts.

Xephos shifted, not looking at Peculier. Given the opportunity to leave the old man, he was unsure what he would do. But he spoke anyway.

"We promise."

"Very good." Peculier drew himself up. He stared ahead again, and was silent for a moment. "Well, come on then. Our destiny awaits." he pressed past them and headed through the breach, the other two in tow, an angry silence falling on them.

"Looks like we're actually entering the desert now, finally." Xephos glowered as he glared at the back of Peculier's helmet. He immediately felt angry for speaking, he was supposed to be angry at both of them. Honeydew for his behavior and Peculier for endangering the dwarf. There was some contradiction there, but Xephos disregarded it.

"Wait, if we're heading into the desert now, then what were we in just back there?" Honeydew replied, seemingly normal now, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb to the dunes they'd crossed. "That looks like a desert to me."

"Well no, this is just where the Sands have spilled through." Xephos said stiffly.

"This is just a sandpit compared to the real desert." Honeydew laughed.

They passed through the breach and into the desert, long shadows casting from The Wall cast across their path, a wide flat expanse of sand stretching for miles towards the horizon. From the plains arced massive arches of sandstone, islands of sand on their backs and dense black shadows below them.

"There's a lot of weird shapes out there in the desert." Honeydew said, staring at the unnerving arches. "I don't like it."

Peculier did not wait nor turn to see if they were following as he looked at the maps and instruments that Adaephon had given him, and led they away into the desert, a trail of tiny pock-marks in the sand marking their footprints.

Morning passed into afternoon in a slow procession of dragged footfalls, the tall eye of the sun glaring at them from on high. The Wall had vanished behind them before noon, and the heat had appeared only hours after setting out into the desert, sending the travelers bent almost double while the sun was at it's zenith. The water had needed to be used sparingly, and Xephos had no grudge sharing his own with Honeydew in the heat. The country became a land of dunes, and while Xephos and Honeydew had wanted to walk in the shade of the hills, Peculier would have none of it. He lead them in a zig-zagging course across the tops of the dunes to save their strength instead of rushing down hills and slogging it back up another.

Xephos had been constantly glancing up ahead as he though he'd seen something ahead, but all that lay before them were mirages cast by the lazy waves of heat that the desert conjured. The heat on the sand was so terrific that he could feel it through his boots and feel it radiating up onto his face, glazed with sweat. He could not imagine how cold -_any_ cold- could be worse than this. His shirt, rolled up to the elbows, was sodden, and Honeydew, though bare-chested as he always was, was pink and had rivers of sweat running down his back like hills in the rainy season.

"You know how some places are nice to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there?" Honeydew gasped as he came to Xephos' side, staring up at the cruelly blue sky. "This isn't even a nice place to visit."

Xephos laughed. He couldn't help himself, he hadn't the energy to be angry at anyone. He just wanted to get to this hand and hope there was shade, and that Peculier would permit them to rest.

_Peculier_. Xephos thought. He looked ahead and saw the old knight, stumbling ahead of him across the spine of the high dune they strode along. He had taken his helm off, with it now hanging from his belt. He still carried the all maps and in spite of his weariness, there was still an air of determination to him. Xephos prayed that this determination hadn't led him to read the map incorrectly.

But as he was looking at Peculier, he saw something else too, something that was certainly not a mirage. It was just peeking out from the other side of a dune less than three-hundred yards away, a blunt protrusion of grey rock like a finger. _No, not like a finger. It _is_ a finger!_ Xephos stumbled as he wasn't watching his feet. He cried out dropped his halberd and landed in the sand, searing pain racing up his arms where they touched it. Honeydew hauled him to his feet and helped to steady him as Peculier stopped and turned.

"What happened? Are you alright?" he asked, voice dry as the paper he held.

"Over there." Xephos said, pointing a shaky hand to the grey knuckle below them. "Over there, there's something in the sand behind the dune!" the others turned and looked, staring over the dunes to the finger. "It's the hand!"

The others were silent as they peered at the indistinguishable shape behind the dune.

"Is it?" Honeydew asked.

"Yes!" Xephos cried in rage, snatching up the halberd by it's shaft. "Can't you see? Stop being so thick, look at it!"

"We can't tell from here." Peculier stated. "We will have to skirt around the tops of the other dunes to get a better look."

Xephos growled.

"We're wasting time!" he spat, eyes growing wild. "You're being retarded! We should just run to it instead of fucking about!"

The gaze Peculier set him in made him feel like ice had been poured into his lungs, yet it did nothing to soothe the heat.

"Listen to me, I've been in the Sands before. You go running down the dunes like a fool you might not have the energy to get back up again. I don't know what I may have done to warrant your ire, Xephos, but you need to bury whatever it is _now._ This land is no place for us to be at each-other's throats." he glanced back at the form below them behind the far dune. "All kinds of things appear in the Sands, we don't know what it could be. So I need you both to follow me, not question what I tell you to do, and pay attention. If I leave you, then you'll have to make your way out of here by yourselves."

Xephos followed as Peculier led them on the frustrating course around the tops of the dunes, his mood black. He kept his eyes on the long grey form as a second peeked out from around the foot of the dune, then a third and a fourth.

"Oh look! A fourth one! I think it _is_ the hand, Peculier." Honeydew called.

"Wait, Honeydew. We have to be _absolutely sure."_ Xephos said icily, eyes boring into Peculier's back, but he didn't turn around. He kept on leading them around the curve of the dune, no-one saying anything until below them at the foot of the long dune a great grey hand reached from the sand, frozen as it clawed blindly at the air. Xephos had planned to make some scathing comment to Peculier, but the sight of the enormous hand struck him with an almost primeval dread, and he stayed silent.

"Woah. . .what. . ?" Honeydew breathed, looking down at the structure. "Oh this can't be good."

"What were you expecting?" Xephos asked blankly.

"We need to go down and examine it." Peculier said, and Xephos nodded in dark agreement as they started down the long dune.

"So what exactly is it?" Xephos asked as they neared the hand, and realised it's full colossal size, each huge finger made of segmented metal, seemingly untouched by rust, in spite of how ancient the structure obviously was, was as big as a large horse-carriage. "Is it made of steel?"

"It _does_ look like it's made from metal." Honeydew commented. "But who'd build something this big out of metal, and what's it doing in a desert anyway? My guess is that it's a giant buried statue. . .or an automation. . .or a Titan. . .or an Old God. I don't know what's worse."

They reached the foot of the hand, and stood in the shadow of it's mighty palm, long metal fingers reaching high above them, like a drowning man's last efforts before he sunk into the depths. While made of metal, and not damaged by the sand, the structure seemed incomplete, like it had never been finished. In the webbing at the base of it's fingers there was bare bars of metal, like the supports that would be within the inside of the rest of the hand had yet to be covered there.

"Well, what do we do now?" Honeydew asked.

"Nothing." Xephos sighed, dropping onto the ground to sit heavily in the shade of the hand. "I am quite happy to sit here until we figure out what we're going to do next."

"I've already done that." Peculier said, eyes scanning all over the hand. "We're going to look for a way in."

"Brilliant." Xephos said, taking a long drink from his water-skin. "Just give me a moment." he sighed.

Xephos helped himself to his feet as Peculier stood at the base of the hand, his own hands pressed to the hard metal as he walked around the base, searching for any opening in the shell.

"What does he really think he's going to find in there?" Xephos sniffed to Honeydew as they watched him round the side of the hand.

"What's with you?" Honeydew asked, concern in his voice. "It's like you're out to get Peculier, he's just making sure that we don't miss anything."

"What's wrong with _me?"_ Xephos glared at Honeydew. "You two have been the ones acting strangely! It's all because of that damn enderman-"

"I can see something inside!" came Peculier's cry from around the outside of the clawing vestige.

"Shit, come on!" Honeydew yelled to Xephos. "Is it alive?!" he called to Peculier as they ran across the sand the other side of the metal, where Peculier stood below the arching index finger, staring through a panel that had fallen away, gazing through to the darkness within.

"Over here!" he called to them as they ran. "There are lights inside!" he pointed through the wide gap into a room most peculiar. A solid metal floor dimly reflected the lights of half a dozen green-screened Precursor machines up against the walls of the room, filling the space with an etherial brightness that belied the outside of the structure.

"Woah." Honeydew breathed. "'Should've known this was of Precursor-race make. Who else would have use of something like this."

"Okay, let's get down there." Xephos grunted as he stepped through the hole in the metal, falling with a thud to the hard floor within. "Huh." he said as Peculier and Honeydew dropped in behind him. The room was made entirely of the same metal as the outside of the hand, and from the ceiling and walls the green light cast through the room. Across the floor there stood an open doorway, and next to it there strangely hung a very old piece of paper on the wall, held there by a spike of crude iron which had no place in a place such as this.

"What is the point of this?" Honeydew asked, stepping over to the screens, trying to comprehend the advanced technology. "A building inside a statue?" he looked up as Xephos stood before the doorway, and saw the paper at the wall. "Is that another-"

"It's not a map." Xephos said, tearing the page down.. "I think it's some kind of journal. Why is this here? It looks like someone left it here."

"More questions." Honeydew sighed.

"Where does this lead?" Peculier asked, staring through the doorway. It sloped into a long steep stairway, lit by dim white lights, and from it the most delightfully cool breeze wafted like a sigh of winter.

"I guess we'll have to find out." Honeydew said. "What does the page say?" he asked Xephos. Stepping away from the doorway and into the pillar of bright sunlight, Xephos held the old and torn page to the light and read aloud it's spidery text.

_Templar Enoch, Personal Log._

_Day 1:_

_My study of the corrosive sand has led me to this metal ruin in the middle of the desert. I must learn why the highest concentration of said sand occurs around this metal structure, and while I am at it, I should also like to de-bug Grizwold's theory of an army of giant automations being trapped beneath the desert. What nonsense! In any case, I must find the answer or Lastwatch Hold is at risk of being buried in sand!_

_-Enoch_

As Xephos finished he became aware that Honeydew was drinking from another bottle.

"Stop drinking all the water!" Xephos yelled at him.

"This is _beer_ I'm drinking, Xephos, it's _beer!" _Honeydew corrected him defensively, pointing at the . "Not water! I'm a dwarf, what the hell did you expect? I've always got an emergency bottle and I decided that this was a good time to take a drink."

Xephos leaned on his halberd, unimpressed as Honeydew took another gulp and stored the bottle away. "What do you think that's all about then?" Honeydew said, nodding at the page Xephos still held.

"Who can say?" Peculier shrugged. "We can only know by exploring further."

"Okay, well I'm going to have a look down here." Xephos sighed, making his way over to the doorway. "I assume we're going to go down here anyway?" he commented as he stepped into the doorway. He couldn't understand what was making those two act so frustratingly. _Maybe it's the heat? Maybe it's you?_ he though as he tramped down the steel stairs in the white light, the footfalls of the others following him. He nearly stopped when he saw another page ahead of him at the landing of the stairs. "There's another page down here." he said as he reached the landing. The page was nailed to the wall with the same kind of iron peg as the last, and to his right a corridor led downward.

"What does it say?" Honeydew asked as he reached the landing. "Actually, can I read it? You're very bland with you're voices." he grinned. Xephos grimaced.

"Go ahead, he declared, tearing the page down and handing it to Honeydew, who looked at it and cleared his throat before beginning, his voice thin and nasal.

_Day 2:_

_Strange, as we are digging away the sand we are finding more and more metal. Grizwold swears that as we dig, the metal is growing "fingers.". Another stupid theory. We must learn how dangerous this sand is. Could it spread and cover the whole world in sand?_

_-Enoch_

"_Kiss," _Honeydew added at the end with a smack of his lips. "So was this was written before The Wall went up? How old is this thing? And why were the Templars around before The Wall?"

"We've been around a lot longer than that. We used to have other duties." Peculier coughed.

"Where is this cold coming from?" Xephos whispered, staring down the second stairway, the breath of cold strengthened into a breeze. "I don't like these notes, it's like someone left them to taunt us."

"Or maybe they were left to help us?" Honeydew suggested. "They seem to be explaining what happened here, and what it is. I certainly hope that this Grizwold wasn't correct."

"We should push on." Peculier said a moment before Xephos started down the stairway. It soon widened into a wide tubular slope, the stairs visible with the now duller light.

"Where does this lead?" Xephos said lowly. Speaking loudly seemed like a foolish idea.

"I guess there's only one way to find out." Honeydew replied, looking at the steel that looped around them. They descended towards a wall at the foot of the stairs, the butt of Xephos' halberd tapping out their pace on the stairs when they saw another page pegged above the doorway below.

"Another one." Xephos sighed. "What is it with us and sheets of paper?"

"Excuse me." Honeydew said, stepping around Xephos to reach up and take the sheet over the doorframe. He gave a chuckle as he looked at it. "I like these." he said. "They're pretty interesting. I wonder what happened to Enoch?"

"If he ever got out of here he's long dead." Peculier shrugged. Honeydew rolled his eyes.

"Thank you for that." he grunted before looking to the paper.

_Day 3:_

_I had a very disturbing dream last night. Can the sand also affect people? I must remember to wear gloves from now on._

_-Enoch._

"Kiss." Honeydew finished again. "It's funny how he signs off like that isn't it?" he chuckled.

"The sand affecting people?" Xephos asked. "I hope not, Jebus, what could it have done to us if it does?"

"We haven't been exposed to it for too long if it does." Peculier reassured him. Xephos grunted.

"Let's move on." he said, stepping through the doorway. The way opened into a "T" junction with paths leading off to the left and right, the coolness here was moderately stronger. "What's down here? Which way?" he looked from left to right.

"Which way do you want to go?" Honeydew asked behind him in the cramped hallway.

Xephos was silent for a moment, considering before he spoke.

"We'll try left first, see where it goes." he said before starting off down the dim corridor, the tapping of his halberd on the metal floor in time with his step. The way was short and led to a room filled with more screens. The objects suddenly seemed strangely familiar to Xephos, not just because he'd seen them before, but like he'd once known how to use them, and what their nature was. _Computers._ The thought sliced through all others like a flash of white light. _Computers? Where did that come from? But, that's what they're called; computers. How do I know that?_ Another memory flashed through his mind, of him seated before one of the machines, things that he didn't now recognise flashing across the screen, but he knew that he'd been controlling them, somehow. _It's just me knowing things randomly. That happens rarely, it happened at Barbeque Bay. The dwarves said it was Lord Jebus showing me things. Oh gods, is it though?_

"Are you okay?" Honeydew asked.

Xephos shook himself when he realised he was standing in the doorway, frozen.

"I'm fine." he rumbled, stepping further into the room. Peculier and Honeydew followed him inside, as there was room enough for all of them, and they cast about the space.

"Where are we? Or even better where are we going?" Honeydew asked. "If this _is_ a statue, we must be inside it's shoulder now."

"Well it looks like there's nothing here. We should try the other way." Xephos said, making for the door.

"Wait, there _is_ something!" Honeydew called before Xephos could make his way out of the doorway. He looked up dourly as Honeydew tore off a page nailed above one of the screens. _Computers._ he reminded himself. _"Grizwold's personal log."_ he read. "Oh of course! The world famous Professor Grizwold, famous for his extraordinary adventures and dashing good-looks." Honeydew grinned sarcastically. "How could I have forgotten?"

"What does it say?" Xephos asked flatly as Peculier leaned against one of the walls while Honeydew cleared his throat and proceeded to read in a preposterous voice that sounded like a trumpet braying, shrill and rasping, full of flats and emphasis on certain word chosen at random in the tangled chain-link of sentences.

_Grizwold's Personal Log:_

_To those that find this; Enoch is wrong! He is obsessed with the sand, but the real threat is staring him in the face!_

_Today I went back up to the surface, and it was as I suspected; the metal ruin has begun to re-grow. I can now see fingers and together they form a hand. I do not know why it has begun to do so only now that we have found it, but I am convinced that we have tampered with something that man has no business dealing with. Are the legends true? What is buried here? Whatever it is, I am scared to dig deeper._

_I will try to convince Enoch, but if he doesn't believe me I will be forced to leave him._

_~ Grizwold._

"_Kiss."_ Honeydew said. "So Grizwold was here too?"

"He saw this thing. . .growing?" Xephos said. "How does metal grow?"

"What legends could he be talking about, Peculier?" asked Honeydew.

"Yes, what have you been keeping from us?" Xephos said, voice hot. Honeydew glanced at him in disbelief.

"What's wrong with you?" he hissed.

"I don't know what legends this professor could be referring to." Peculier replied icily. "Some legends suggest that the Sands were made by Notch with the intention of swallowing the world when he left this universe, and Lord Jebus gave Verigan visions telling him to build The Wall." Xephos gritted his teeth. That fit too closely with what the dwarves said was happening to him, and he had no intention of being a puppet of the gods.

"Let's head down the other way." Honeydew suggested. "I'll lead." Xephos stepped aside for him to get past him, shooting a glance at Peculier, tapping the butt of his halberd on the floor twice before following Honeydew. _What _is _wrong with you? _ he thought. _Why are you acting like this to Peculier? He was trying to help last night. And Honeydew! You've barely ever fought in your lives! What is happening? _But none the less he maintained his stony expression and followed after Honeydew through the pleasant coolness of the corridor. The corridor ended in a ladder taking them downwards a few yards before landing in another hallway that led and opened into another, far wider passage. The wide curved walls met at a white strip light that glowed down on them as the path opened into a "V" split, heading off left and right straight ahead.

"What have we here?" Honeydew said, looking down either passage, the walls adorned with old dusty spider-webs and motes of sand across the floor. "Gods, it's a bit dusty down here." he commented.

"Look," Xephos pointed over to the wall that divided the two splitting paths. "another page."

"Oh, Grizwold or Enoch?" Honeydew mused, striding over and tearing the page from it's peg. ". . .and it's Enoch. I've forgotten the voice already." he added after a pause.

"I'm convinced these have been left to taunt us." Xephos all but growled.

_Day 4:_

_Argued with Grizwold. He _left!_ The coward. Our supplies are plentiful, but for some reason my canteen always seems to be empty. I'm worried that the sand may be affecting me, my throat is always dry. I must find the secret of the sand (It cannot be much further). I will continue exploring and clearing out the sand with my fellows._

_-Enoch_

"_Kiss."_

"Knight Peculier, do you have _any_ idea what's going on?" Xephos asked. "Peculier?" he called when he heard no reply.

"The cold air coming from down here." he replied, standing before right passage. "This place. . . I am unnerved by it."

"So we should head this way?" Honeydew asked moving to the mouth of the passage. Cold radiated from the depths, juxtaposed to the heat of barely and hour previously, it chilled his bare skin into goose-prickles.

"Why not?" Xephos stepped past him into the passage. "Gods it keeps getting colder. What's causing it?"

"Maybe it's better we don't know." Peculier suggested as they followed Xephos, strips of white lighting overhead briefly flickering every so often. The path sloped gently, and abruptly the path changed from a metal passageway into a rocky tunnel, the way ahead lit by cubes of white set into the ceiling casting a sterile glow across the cold tunnel.

"What's happened here?" Peculier asked. "A cave-in?"

"No, not a cave-in." Honeydew said, studying the rocks, stepping from the metal floor onto the hard stone. "It looks like someone created a tunnel leading away from the statue and linked it up with this hallway inside it. That is assuming we were in a statue, which looks likely now."

"Do we follow it?" Xephos said.

"I see no reason to not." Honeydew answered. "This tunnel looks very sturdy, not like something I'd expect to see under a desert."

"The land here wasn't always a desert, remember." Peculier reminded them, looking up at the grey stone as they traveled the pathway. The way led them to a small cavern with a single natural pillar sprouting from ground to ceiling in the center. No sooner that they entered the room when a broken form lurched off the ground and twisted at the sound of their approach, a dead groan sounding from it's rotted mouth. The zombie made for them as another emerged from behind the pillar, alerted by the groans of it's fellow.

"Zombies, a couple of them!" Xephos shouted, grasping his halberd in both hands. He stepped towards the first undead as it shuffled across the floor, the spiked head of his weapon piercing the skull and sending the zombie to the ground heavily.

"There's another one!" Honeydew called as another zombie appeared around the pillar.

"It's alright, there's only a few." Xephos said as Honeydew rushed forward with his heavy mace, his strike sending zombie gore up much of the right wall as the third came at them.

"Do you want this one?" asked Honeydew.

"Just kill it." Xephos said irritably when Peculier stepped past him, lunging at the zombie and stepping back, a single clean hole through the zombie's forehead where his thin blade had pierced. "That's all? It wasn't a serious threat. A creeper would've been more of an issue. That was just a minor inconvenience."

"You'll jinx us." Honeydew warned. "Onward then." he said, looking down at his mace and at the splatter across the wall with an impressed expression.

Xephos sighed and with his weapon still at the ready he made his way around the left side of the pillar. A tunnel led off to the left here, strange long dead vines clinging to the cracks in the earth in a determined death-grip. He swept them away as the others followed him down a short slope to another most peculier cavern.

This one was much larger than the previous, and was filled with the music of running water as a long forgotten stream ran from a spring in the right wall to a hole in the left. In the middle of the large room under the white light of the strange lanterns there stood what seemed to be a camp, stretchers laid out around a pile of chests and packs, strange equipment left long-idle on rocky clefts all around.

"What is this?" Xephos asked to no one as he stepped into the cavern, the stream running over the rocks at his feet.

"It looks like a camp or something." Honeydew said, stepping over the stream and making for the ancient encampment. "But it's old, very old."

"Enoch's?" Xephos asked as he followed Peculier over the water.

"I'd say so. There's three other beds here too. Probably his "fellows"." Honeydew answered as Xephos came to him amongst the beds. Everything was covered in a century's worth of dust, but otherwise nothing had aged at all, no rot affected wooden shafts of tools, nor did rust mar the steel.

"Where did they go if they just left everything here?" Xephos asked, anticipating the answer.

"It is likely they never made it out." Peculier said. _"Why_ not, I hope we do not have to find out."

Xephos was gazing over the beds when his eyes lighted on a piece of paper neatly folded on the pillow of a bed. He reached out and picked up the page, unfolding it before himself.

"What is that?" Honeydew asked from beside him.

"Another page of Enoch's. Do you want to read it?"

"Yes." Honeydew replied, taking the note and staring down at it.

_Day 5:_

_This ruin was silent before, but now there seem to be noises all around. I swear that someone else is here. Several of my research pages are missing, and I've seen the frightful pale-faced man in my sleep again. I grow worried._

_-Enoch_

"_Kiss."_ Honeydew added uncertainly.

"Uh oh." Xephos breathed.

"The pale-faced man?" Honeydew repeated.

"We know who that is." Xephos ground his teeth, eyeing the walls with distrust. _What if he's here now?_

"It could be anyone, it could be _anyone." _Honeydew shook his head. "Pale face? Doesn't narrow it down."

"Of course it does!" Xephos suddenly erupted. "Look where we are Honeydew! You think it's a coincident that people have been seeing pale-faced men _here?_ It's fucking Israphel!"

"Not necessarily" Honeydew added stubbornly. Xephos glared at him.

"Does the tunnel continue ahead?" he snapped at Peculier.

"Yes." Peculier answered flatly.

"Let's keep moving then." Xephos growled, the butt of his halberd making dents in the rock where he pounded it to the floor with every step. "And why is it so bloody cold down here!?" he shivered. The tunnel went for only a short while before the rock ended and returned to metal, the cold surface chilling the air around it so their breath fogged upon stepping onto the dull floor.

"So what's this then? Was that tunnel connecting two structures or something?" Xephos asked, voice still harsh as he glared down the short, wide passage ahead.

"A reasonable assumption." Honeydew said, voice sounding hurt.

"Well where are we now then?" he started down the hallway, a green glow coming from a room at the end of it. They entered into a box-shaped room where several glass screens of computers lined up one wall, their green glow painting the room as they stood in their projection. Across the room the path continued through a metal archway, and beside it was another page pegged to the wall.

"Honeydew." Xephos said as neutrally as he could, nodding at the page. The dwarf haughtily looked at him, offense heavy in his stride as he walked across to the page and tore it from the wall.

"I hope that you find this one more to your liking." Honeydew said through gritted teeth.

_Day 8:_

_My tools are blunt. Fingernails dig quicker. Ink for notes is running out testing shows that blood is a passable substitute for ink. I should have more than enough._

_-Enoch_

"_No kiss."_ Honeydew finished, staring at the page. "What the fuck was that about? Is he going mad?"

"Do you still think that Israphel had nothing to do with it?" Xephos' voice was leaden as he made for the archway. He peered ahead and saw down the far end of the wide, derelict corridor was a glowing green light. "There's something ahead." he commented as Honeydew still stared at the paper in his large hands.

"What is it?" Peculier asked.

"I'm not sure, but it's green and glowing. The air from this direction feels warmer too."

"Do you think it's dangerous?" Honeydew said.

"We're not stopping even if it is." Xephos looked back at them as he walked under the arch and into the passage. The walls were covered in old spider webs or long dead vines, and as they paced down the corridor the temperature grew while they drew near what Xephos now could see was a thick stream of glowing liquid, sickly green and moving like molasses, it's bubbling mass glowing as it melted a hole through the ceiling and through the floor.

"What is that stuff?" Honeydew inquired, striding past Xephos. "It's giving off a lot of heat. You'd probably burn off a finger as soon as you touched it."

"It's like lava then?" Xephos stopped six yards short of the mass, the heat it was giving off was terrific, Xephos suspected that even if they rushed past it into the rest of the corridor they might be burnt.

"I don't know." Honeydew stood closer, his experience in the dwarven forges allowing him to endure the heat. Xephos eyed the substance with mistrust, but then he saw something else to his right, and looking he found another page nailed to the wall. He gave a sigh and tore it from the peg, recoiling when his eyes fell on the words.

"What is it?" Honeydew asked when Xephos handed him the page.

"It's written in. . .well. . ."red ink"." Xephos replied.

"Oh my gods. It's blood." Honeydew gasped, looked down at the aged red-brown letters on the yellowed page, the green light of the liquid visible through the other side of the paper. "There's no date." Honeydew began.

_I have found an exposed rivulet of a strange green substance! I have taken a sample, but perhaps I should've worn gloves. But no, my beautiful sandstone hands should not be hidden away. The others are beginning to grow skittish, wanting to leave, but I shall not allow it! They will stay here even if only their bodies do._

_-Enoch_

"Oh, fuck." Honeydew breathed. "Yeah, Israphel's looking more and more likely." he nervously looked about him. Xephos' face was stuck in a disgusted snarl.

"Sandstone hands!? What the fuck happened to him?"

"Jebus, Enoch. . ." Honeydew moaned. They barely noticed the heat as they passed green stream. The passage wound on through the stone under the desert, growing more and more broken, vines and webs clung from all walls, and increasingly panels had fallen away from the walls, leaving bare hard rock in their place.

"So is Enoch turning into sand or what. . ?" Xephos asked as they walked across the heavily pitted ground.

"Does the Sands turn other things into sand, _including people?"_ Honeydew said his voice hoarse. "I don't like this." For the first time in hours, Xephos wasn't angered by this statement of his.

The path became more and more wild, with hardly and metal on the wall any more, and the only light coming from the white lamps that had been set into the ceiling. Soon sand began to appear in the tunnel, great masses of it carpeting the floors of small caverns they would pass through, and all including Peculier made great effort to avoid letting their skin touch it. In one of theses small caverns Xephos spied to the left side another doorway in the rock, half covered by dry vines, and a white light shining from within.

"Wait, what's in here?" he said, stopping as the other two made for the continuation of the tunnel mouth.

"How long are we going to keep exploring this place for?" Honeydew said nervously while he followed Xephos to the doorway. Pushing past the vines he stood up within a tiny room walled with metal, an old computer glowing faintly in the wall, above which another page hung, as though taunting them. Taking the page from the wall as Peculier stayed standing outside the doorway, Xephos briefly skimmed over the dried blood on the page before handing it to his friend.

"My gods, read that." he breathed.

_I have been shown what is to come, and know what has been. The __**Sentinels**__ call for freedom, their blood green, what flows from old wounds has began to clot, healing, __**rebuilding. **__It fights the __**sands**__, the sand forgets, __**too old and too weak**__. It's power is turned on the innocent by an ancient master. The others wanted to flee, but now shall lie here forever. The __**Sentinels awaken.**_

"Okay what the fuck is going on here?" Honeydew said quickly after finished reading aloud. Xephos ducked out of the room.

"The Sentinels? What's that all about?" he said to Peculier gruffly. "Do you have any idea what he was talking about? It was all gibberish, I didn't really get it at all."

"I know as much as you do." Peculier stared him right in the eye. "It is likely that he went mad, murdering all his associates, but if he was still lucid, I do not know what he could mean." Xephos stared at his for a moment longer then turned angrily and made for the continued tunnel, sand crunching against rock under-heel.

"At what point do we decide to turn back?" he growled as the others caught up to him. "What even is this place!?"

"Wait, I think I understand what Enoch could've been saying." Peculier blurted, prompting the others to turn and face him. "He said something about the sand now harms the innocent like that wasn't the intent of it, and how these Sentinels were harmed by the sand. I think that may've been their purpose. To be used as a weapon, but now Israphel is turning the Sands. Could that mean that the sand was supposed to be. . .good?"

"But what are the Sentinels?" Honeydew asked. "He said they had green blood and were healing themselves."

They made to think about this, when abruptly all of their faces changed to a look of horror.

"Oh fuck off." Honeydew said.

"Green blood. What was that green shit we saw back there?" Xephos said. "Healing themselves? Didn't Grizwold say something about the hand on the surface growing fingers?" his blood turned to ice. "Grizwold, he knew it all along. He wrote about a mechanical army under the Sands. . . I think he may have been right."

"So that means that the Sentinels are. . .we are inside one? A giant creature made of metal?" Honeydew stared at the ceiling.

"And if they are repairing themselves, they could be trying to break free." Peculier's voice was dead flat. "Does that mean the sand is trying to stop them? Are we doing the wrong thing by stopping the sand?"

"No." Xephos replied sharply. "Letting people die by allowing the desert to expand across the world is _not_ a good thing, even if the Sentinels are rising." Xephos realised with a start that this was the first not-unkind thing he'd said to Peculier today, and felt guilty for it. _What has gotten into your head? _he thought. _This quest is bigger than your problems. Whatever grudge you have on Peculier or Honeydew you need to swallow it. There is no space for you to be arrogant here!_

". . .But how did the Sentinels get under the sand anyway?" Honeydew asked. Xephos took a deep breath.

"It doesn't matter, friend_."_ he put deliberate emphasis on the word. Honeydew looked up at him and eventually smiled. "We have our job, so we're going to do it." he gave a sudden chuckle. "Hell, Adaephon knew about them too! Don't you remember? When he was sick, he said something about the Sentinels." the others' eyes widened in realisation. "If he knew and still sent us on this mission it has to be the right thing. I won't believe anything otherwise."

"Well, that settles that then." Honeydew stated. "Let's keep going. There has to be something in here that will make sense of everything." They all agreed, and headed through the tunnel of earth and sand. Soon the way cleared and the surfaces were replaced with the same hard gunmetal as before. The corridors narrowed, and the heat increased when out of nowhere a page was found nailed to the left wall, a doorway not far down the hallway cast a flickering light from it as Honeydew read the words, angular and written in blood.

_I am barely lucid now, my thoughts are not my own, but I see now that Grizwold was right. the sand is not evil, it is a prison for these dark machinations. I am so itchy, by bones feel so very itchy. Like buzzing insects under my skin. Only relief, only solution is __**removal.**_

"What does that mean?" Xephos asked as Peculier walked down the corridor to examine the room through the doorway on the wall.

"I think he just went mad-" Honeydew began when Peculier cried out.

"Oh gods, I think I'm going to be sick!" he knelt beside the doorway as the other two rushed to him, turning to look at the horror within.

The room was small, and barren of decoration and purpose, the only thing that stood in the room was a pile of rags in one corner surrounded by rust. But when Honeydew gave a yell of horror, Xephos realised what it was he was looking at. In the corner sat an ancient yellowed skeleton, dried flesh cast off about the floor around it while some still clung to it's bones. Xephos staggered back when he realised that it was not rust that covered half the room, but the stain of century old blood.

"Oh my gods. . ." Xephos swore. Beside him Honeydew noisily vomited onto the metal floor while Peculier gasped at the remains of Enoch, still wearing his ancient clothing as he'd torn his flesh from his bones.

"Jebus. . ." Honeydew coughed into the puddle of his own vomit.

"That's what happens when you drink beer after going cold turkey for so long." Xephos thumped him on the back, any excuse to get away from the body.

"Augh, my beer." the dwarf moaned.

"He. . .removed his flesh from his bones!" Peculier cried, staring into the room. Honeydew spat once more and stood, warily making his way into the doorway.

"That is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Look how horrible that is!" he turned and exited the room moaning.

"Fuck! Is this what happens when you are in contact with the sand too long!?" Xephos yelled in the chaos.

"We should look for clues!" Honeydew announced, righting himself before boldly charging back into the room, tripping over his own feet and falling shoulder first into the remains of the skeleton.

"Oh my gods Honeydew!" Xephos cried, running over to his friend and hauling him out of the broken remains. "Are you okay?"

"Oh gods I touched it I touched it I touched it!" Honeydew squealed. "There isn't any on me is there?" he asked.

"No, you shattered the skeleton to bits!" Xephos pointed emphatically at the pile of tiny fragments of bone. "Wait, how did you do that? They shattered really easily." he observed.

"His bones must've turned to sandstone, like his hands did." Peculier stepped into the room, staring down at the body of Enoch, his skull now cracked in two, a scrap of skin still on his scalp. "That skeleton we saw at the Spider Tree probably met a similar fate." Peculier noted.

"The one at the Spider Tree?" Honeydew said. "But. . .oh gods, I _licked_ that thing."

"So is there anything of actual use here?" Xephos grimaced at the blood covering the walls. Enoch was probably very animated in his self-mutilation before his death to get blood on the ceiling of all places.

"I don't think so." Peculier said. "Poor Enoch. He didn't deserve this."

"I don't think anyone does." Honeydew turned away from the cascade of the shards of Enoch's body.

"Shall we move on then?" Xephos asked.

"Yes please." Honeydew replied, already out of the room. There was many a backwards glance as they made their way further down the corridor, where the temperature grew more hot with seemingly every step until they came to a short stairway. The stairs took they upwards until they emerged into what seemed to be a small hangar, a wide room with rail tracks running all across the floor, the left wall of which was open to a huge balcony in the middle of a massive cavern.

"What is this?" Xephos said as he stepped out onto the balcony, sweat dripping down his forehead. Coming to the edge of the railing he looked over. "Oh dear." he said softly. The carven floor swarmed in a green light as the glowing Sentinel Blood seared the air with vicious heat, a great lake of emerald fire lying below them.

"That's not good." Honeydew came up beside him, staring down at the Blood as it tossed in roiling fury. "And that looks like the only way we're getting across there." he pointed to the end of the balcony, where the rail tracks ran along precarious platforms suspended in the air from hanging chains and metal scaffolding, their paths wild and twisting as they ran into the far reaches of the cavern.

"Looks like we have a ride ahead of us." Peculier stated, sounding worried.

"Is that wise?" Xephos asked. "Surely we could just walk across a track instead of riding in a cart." Xephos looked behind him to where dozens of carts waited on the rails. There were three different tracks, and at the bases of them were launch platforms that a cart would need to be pushed up onto so they may be sent on their way.

"Walking across those rails would be precarious without having to worry about passing out from the heat." Peculier nodded. "It will be much safer to take the carts, they are designed to not come of the rails, so I am certain we'll all be fine."

Xephos suppressed the urge to yell at the old man for being reckless. _Don't be daft. He's your friend, trust him._

"Well I don't really see any other option." Xephos sighed, turning to look at the rails, biting his tongue. "But now there's the matter of which path do we take."

"There are three paths, and three of us. One each." Peculier said. The urge grew stronger, but Xephos forced it back.

"Why? What if they go to the wrong places?" he asked.

"I am sorry to say it, but it is better if we take separate paths here than all of us taking the same one and risking us all falling into the Blood." Peculier looked at the two of their expressions with a hard one. "If we all survive it is likely we will be able to meet again on the other side."

"Likely." Xephos said. "I don't much like the sound of that."

"It's the only way forward. We can't walk around the edge of the cave because there isn't one." Peculier kept his face hard. "Which rails do you want to take?" he asked.

". . .I'll take the left-most one." Honeydew said slowly, looking at the tracks. "I guess we have to push the carts up onto these launchers." he said, staring at an elevated section of the tracks, where a cart would be pressed between two wheels either side of it, presumably to give it a burst of speed.

"I'll take the right then." Xephos stared across at the tangle of the tracks as they wound above the Blood, looking for any places where the track might've fallen away.

"So I'll have the middle." Peculier agreed. "I assume we push the carts up onto these pedestals." he stated.

"Yeah, and it looks like there's a lever here too. I guess it might set them off?" Honeydew pointed to a tall lever jutting from the ground beside his pedestal on the left. "I'll pull it when we're all in and see what happens." They each found a cart on the rails behind the launchers inside the hangar, heavy things of grey metal, obviously meant to transport wares and not people. They began to push the carts down their individual tracks to the launchers, where they needed to push the heavy carts up a short steep rise before they sat within the cradle. Honeydew pushed his along easily, having no problem shunting it up the ramp in spite of the cart's weight. Xephos was trying to heave his own up when Honeydew approached Peculier, who seemed to be struggling with his.

"No, I am fine." he heaved. "I do not need help, but just take this if you want to help, it's getting in the way." he stopped and took the map-case from off his shoulder and handed it to Honeydew, who looked bemused as he slung it across his chest and headed for his own cart, vaulting up into it to wait for the others.

Xephos pressed his shoulder against the metal bulk and with a heave he pushed it over the slope and onto the launcher. He was about to hop in when he saw that Peculier was still struggling, pushing hard and still not at the ramp. He stepped away from the right track and crossed over to Peculier, laying a hand on the cart as he looked up.

"Take my cart, Peculier, I'll push this one up and use it." he said softly. Peculier was almost panting from the effort.

"Alright, thank you for offering, Xephos." he stepped away from the cart and began to make his way over to Xephos' up on the pedestal.

"It's okay," Xephos said after him. "take it as thanks for all that you've done for us. You push yourself harder than we two do." he smiled wryly as Peculier looked back, and for the first time in days a grin flashed across his face, before he turned and mounted the cart. Xephos watched him go. In spite of his newfound vigor, Xephos had to remind himself, Peculier was and old man, if he kept pushing like he was he'd kill himself.

"Come on, Xephos you're keeping us up!" Honeydew called from his left. Xephos laughed and began to push his cart at a run, the speed helping it up the ramp before jamming in between two wheels. He hoisted himself up onto the pedestal and got himself seated within the large cart, which was deep enough for him to sit in with legs outstretched without the top of his head coming over the rim. He crouched in the center, gripping either side as he looked across at the others, Honeydew on the left, and Peculier the right, in the cart he was supposed to be in.

"Keep your weight in the dead center, if you lean too hard to one side you might come off." Xephos told them. "Also keep your arms inside. Can you reach the lever, Honeydew?"

"Yes." the dwarf replied, arm outside of the cart as he reached over to grip the top of the lever's head. "Are we ready? This might not work."

"Are we ready?" Xephos looked at Peculier, who nodded, a tiny figure in the huge cart. "Right, we're ready." he breathed.

"Okay, now hold, because this may do nothing." Honeydew said, and then pulled the lever.

The wheels on either side of the carts suddenly gave a kick, spinning like a vortex, sending the carts flying off their platforms, the sudden movement nearly throwing Xephos into the back of his cart.

"We're off!" Xephos called, hearing Honeydew give a cry as they hurtled along the railway to the balcony's edge. Xephos looked ahead as the floor dropped away and a wave of heat rolled over him. The green glow of the Blood glared up at him, the only thing keeping him from falling into it was the narrow railway that his cart hurtled along. His fingers gripped the sides of the cart and he braced his knees to the sides of the walls as he hit another set of wheels either side of the track, the booster sending him up a long slope towards the cavern ceiling. Scaffold and chains rushed past him, and the hot wind rushed through his hair, old vines hung in upside-down forests from the ceiling as his cart ratted along. He rounded bends on an eclectic course, sometimes glimpsing other tracks, but only occasionally spotting Honeydew or Peculier as the two other paths wound through the cavern in tandem with his. The horror was exhilarating, the cruel fate of the Blood loomed ever close below him, but in spite of it Xephos let out cries of euphoria as the cart rushed through boosters and down slopes. But his eyes were ever on the track ahead, watching for a gap or rupture, legs cramping from his bracing to jump. The cavern ran on longer than Xephos expected, now rounding a sharp corner, the tracks following, when another passed under Xephos' and looking ahead he saw Honeydew further along on his own track, but as he looked he saw that one track ahead was broken, a section having fallen away into the Blood. Frantic he traced the path of the track, and saw that it did not join onto his, but the one below him. And no sooner than he saw this, did Peculier speed along that very track under him.

"_The track, Peculier!" _Xephos called in horror as the cart closed the gap. If he heard his call Xephos never knew. Yet as Peculier approached the end of his track he saw the break, and turned in his cart, jumping backwards, towards safety, but it was fruitless. As he leapt, the momentum of his speed carried him backwards and over the edge. Xephos watched, expressionless, emotionless, as Peculier's flailing body followed his cart, the cart meant for him, towards the roiling malice of the Blood. Nothing could be done, not with a hundred men. And so with arms reaching high and legs kicking as he fell through the air, Old Peculier fell into the green mass of the Blood, his form convulsing as it contacted the searing heat. And there he thrashed, screaming silently in his death, as his body eventually vanished under the surface in the final throes of his defiance, succumbing to the Sentinel's Blood, and Peculier was seen no more.

Xephos stared, frozen to the side of his vehicle. He did not feel the speed or the force of the rails under him. He gazed, unbelieving, at the place where Peculier had fallen. He began to pass by a wall, slowly blocking his vision of the site. He scrambled towards the back of his cart, desperate, hoping he'd been wrong, but the broken track faded away, and the Blood did not stir. His body not in his control, Xephos turned as he slumped back into the rear of the cart, eyes, blindly gazing ahead into the wall of metal, but he did not see that. He saw Peculier falling. He saw it over and over, sometimes he in Peculier's place, in the cart that had meant to be his. He viewed that death countless times before he realised he was crying. He could not stop himself, and nor would he if he were able. Putting his face into a hand he sobbed as Peculier's cart carried him, it's walls protecting him and wheels guiding him along the fell tracks and further into the dark, the last gift he would give him.


	39. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter39

Chapter 39: Doppelgängers

Xephos didn't notice that the cart had slowed until it slammed into something with a jarring clash. the motion didn't move him, and he continued to sit slumped in the cart, head resting against his fist on the wall, face stained with tears that he'd ran out of long ago. How long ago that was he did not know.

"Xephos? Peculier? Are you in there?" came Honeydew's voice, and he appeared over the edge of the cart, standing above Xephos. "Xephos! I was starting to get worried. I don't think that ride was very safe." his smile faded as Xephos stood mechanically, not looking anywhere but blindly ahead. Xephos limply threw his halberd out and onto the ground, pulling himself out onto the opposite side of the cart from Honeydew. The dwarf's cart was ahead of Xephos' itself pressed against an iron brace at the end to the tracks. "Are you okay?" Honeydew asked. "I'm guessing the ride disagreed with you, probably not the best thing after seeing a dead body. When do you think Peculier's going to arrive? It looks like he's fallen behind a bit." Xephos sharply sucked in a gasp of air at the mention of the name.

"He's not coming." he blurted, his speech abrupt and lethargic. "He died, Honeydew. He fell. The track just fell away and he couldn't get away." he could feel emotion building in his voice and tears returning to his eyes. "I tried. . .oh gods, I tried to warn him. B-but he didn't hear me in time. He just fell away into the Blood and was gone. Jebus, he was gone. . ." he couldn't make himself look at Honeydew. "He looked like he was in so much pain." he whispered, leaning against the cart.

Honeydew stared at him, jaw half hanging open. He was quiet a while, turning and looking down the long stone tunnel they stood in, staring out into the cavern as though if he waited long enough the third cart would appear on the rails.

"I don't want to know anything more about how he died." his voice cracked as he spoke. He gave a sob, then laid a hand on the side of the cart before he bent and wept softly into his other hand. "Oh gods, why did it have to be like this? Why here?" he turned, staring into the large cart as he sniffed. "Well. He's gone. Nothing to be done about it." he said, his attempt at bluntness betrayed by another break in his voice as he tried to hold back his tears. Xephos balled a fist and slammed it against the steel rim of the cart they both stood around.

"No, no, no! You don't understand, do you!?" he cried, finally looking at Honeydew as he slammed his fist harder and harder again on the rim. "That was _my_ cart he was in. _Mine._ We swapped just before we left the station, remember? That fate was meant for me. _Me!" _his mouth quivered as he finished with a shout. He looked away from Honeydew's sympathetic eyes as he sniffed. "It should've been me. Fuck, it was meant to be me."

"I'm not going to hear you say that." Honeydew's voice had regained some of it's steel. "You are not at fault for his death. Peculier wouldn't have wanted you to say you were, so don't think you are."

"But what use am I!?" Xephos cried, rounding to Honeydew. He gripped the edge of the cart. "I'm a bodyguard, a sword for hire! He was the one that was needed! I'm expendable! You're expendable! Without him there _is_ no hope!" he turned to the wall again, hands gripping his hair. "Oh gods, he had the maps and everything."

"Now there's something I can convince you that you are wrong about." Honeydew pulled the cylindrical leather tube from off his shoulder. "He gave them to me when he was trying to push his cart. Old man's wisdom exceeded even his own knowledge." he gave a weak chuckle, then breathe deeply and stared at the map-case, Xephos still facing the wall. "Xephos, this is what he meant when he said we might have to go on without him." Honeydew said in a low voice. "Now, I hoped it wouldn't happen, but we need to honor that, and continue."

". . .I was so horrible to him." Xephos whispered. "All he ever did was for the good, and I acted like I hated him, this last day." the word "last" seemed to echo after he finished.

"You're a fool if you think he thought that." Honeydew said.

"I'm a fool for reasons other than that."

"We have to continue, Xeph'." Honeydew reminded him. "There's still the world to save, and Daisy." he gave a bitter laugh. "Remember when it was just about her?" Xephos finally turned, his eyes ringed with red.

"But what are we going to do without Peculier?" he asked, sounding like a small child asking his parents if everything was going to come out all right. "He was the one who knew what was needed to do. Adaephon said that he needed to "realise his destiny", how's he going to do that now? Face it, we have no idea what we're doing!"

"We never do, Xephos." Honeydew said, head slowly sinking to the cart's rim. ". . .we never do. . ." he said around sobs that racked his body, fighting their way out from under his stony facade. Xephos rushed around the cart to the side of his friend.

"No," he sighed. "You're right, he would've wanted us to carry on. And we need to. There's still a world to save."

"We'll hold a funeral for him." Honeydew sobbed as he stood up. "If we ever get out of here."

"After everything is done." Xephos nodded. "We'll find a tavern and we'll toast to him. The dwarven way." Honeydew breathed deeply, composing himself.

"We need to move." he said. "Go get you're polearm. There's no point in us standing here." he gave a glance back down the tracks to the evilly green light beyond. "Not anymore."

Xephos left him and walked around the other side of the cart again, stooping and picking up the shaft of the hooked bill. With another glance backwards, he said a brief farewell to Peculier, then followed Honeydew down the smooth stone tunnel. The tapping of the butt of his halberd echoed down the length of the tube, the only sound until they came to an unmarked set of metal door that filled the hallway. The doors had no mark and no handle, and just as Xephos was preparing to use the point of the weapon to pry them open, the doors shifted apart with a hiss at their approach. The motion caused them to stop dead before they cautiously stepped into the room beyond.

The glow of the impossibly contained Sentinel Blood seeped through the room as it flowed through glass pipes hanging from the ceiling, a huge transparent vat of the pulsing material filled the entire left half of the room, it's heat somehow contained by the glass.

"I hate this stuff." Honeydew said, voice a symphony of venomous malevolence. He stepped closer to the vat, even the temperature of the Blood was stifled by the glass. "It's evil. Can you feel it? It hates."

"Leave it be. But yes, I can feel it." Xephos said, eyes tracking the path of the Blood as it sluggishly moved through the pipes. "This looks like the way." he said, nodding towards a door at right. Honeydew turned away from the vat with one last look that could've frozen even it's morbid heat. The doorway led to a room half the size of the one previous, one wall covered in screens and levers, and another set of unmarked metal doors at the other, except these didn't open when the two approached them, nor would they budge when they attempted to open them by force.

"Well what the fuck do we do now?" Honeydew asked. "Is there another way through in the other room?"

"Not that I saw." Xephos answered. "There must be a way to open it somehow." he looked around the room, the only other objects were the levers on the right wall, screens occasionally flashing around them. "Do you think these do anything?" Xephos asked as he crossed over to the mass of a dozen levers.

"Well they might, but will they open the door or blow us up?" Honeydew replied. "I'll go back into the other room to look for a way out." he walked back towards the exit as Xephos stared at the wall of levers. "I wouldn't touch those." he added as he left the room.

The levers had once had letters written above them, but now they were faded and gone by the passage of time. Some of the levers were pulled down while others were still up, and at that moment Xephos stared up at the wall and felt as though he was not in his own body. He still looked up at the wall, but now he remembered looking up at it in a memory he could not place. In the memory he had known the purpose of each lever, and pulled them deftly. Now, still feeling like he was not in control of his body he reached out and pulled two down and another he flicked up, making the metal doors slide away with a hiss. He exited the memory like being dunked in cold water, shivering and gasping silently. It had not been him who had remembered those things, and it had not been him who'd acted in the levers. He stared emptily ahead as he stared at the now open doorway, wondering how he had done that. _It wasn't me. I felt like I was just a passenger in my own body. Oh gods what is happening to me? _he thought.

"What happened?" Honeydew said, seeing him across the room through the doorway from the other room. As he entered he saw the door was open and the way was cleared, and he glanced back to Xephos standing by the levers. "You did this didn't you?" he said. "It was the Showings again wasn't it? Jebus showed you how to do it, didn't he?" he said excitedly.

"It's not divine, Honeydew." Xephos said lowly. "It's been happening more often, it happened only hours ago. Those things? They're called _computers." _ Xephos pointed to the screens. "But this time it was different. It was like I'd been forced out of my own body, it was like I was . . .remembering. . ."

"Remembering what?"

Xephos drew a heavy breath, not wishing to dwell on the idea that some thoughts other than his own could be seeping into his head.

"Remembering someone else's thoughts." he said. "It doesn't matter. We need to press on. Let's move." he didn't wait for Honeydew to follow as he moved to the doorway.

Just beyond the short passageway that led through the door a low bank of sand covered the exit save for a foot deep gap between the ceiling and top of the tiny dune. Xephos cautiously trudged up to the gap and half dug, half wriggled his way through to the next room, resting atop the sandhill top help Honeydew through. The room was a large one, with high ceiling illuminated by bright white lights high above and and enormous screen on the opposite wall, roughly five yards high and eight across, casting it's signature green glow across the floor. Half of the room was covered in sand, spilling from a rip in the steel in the bottom right corner. Xephos slid down the hill, vaulting to his feet with is halberd in the middle of the screen's oppressive glow.

"So where are we? Are we still in the Sentinel's belly?" he asked.

"I don't think so, not unless those things are very oddly proportioned. The only other option would suggest we're in, well, another one." Honeydew theorised.

"How many of these damned things could there be under this fucking desert." Xephos swore, not enjoying the idea of a army of living metal giants.

"Which way then?" Honeydew asked.

"Up there." Xephos pointed to the left side of the room, looking away from the mesmerising computer. He pointed to a door that stood next to a raised catwalk, a stairway leading up to it. "That looks promising."

"We're going to be stuck down here forever." Honeydew sighed as they walked up the stairs and through the doorway, leaving the screen behind.

The next room proved stranger than the last. From where they entered the left and right walls were lined with large glass tanks, pipes and wires running to them, and a large machine that sat in the middle of the room. Their footfalls rang as they stepped cautiously through the long room, eyeing the tanks.

"I really don't like this place. It's unnatural." Honeydew commented, stopping before a tank on the left wall. They were all shaped like cylinders, and had an opening in it like a door, this one of which was open. "What are these things anyway? They look like they were made to hold people." he stepped inside the tank and Xephos, who had his back turned as he studied the computer, did not notice when the glass door slid shut behind him. Honeydew turned at the sound of the door being sealed and in panic began to hammer at the door, screaming for Xephos who couldn't hear him. His franticness only increased when he realised than a cloudy white liquid was pooling at his feet.

"I guess you're right. I don't really want to think about what they used them for though." Xephos commented darkly, unaware that Honeydew was currently trapped. "Probably weird experiments." he gave a grim smile as he turned, which vanished as he saw Honeydew, screaming silently as the liquid came to his waste. "Oh shit!" Xephos cried as he rushed up to the door, Honeydew pressing himself against it with all of his strength. "How did you do this!?" he tried to yell through to Honeydew, but the dwarf could not hear, and nor he him. Stepping back from the tank, Xephos gripped his halberd and swung it with all the force he was able to at the door. Honeydew shrunk back as he did, the fluid at his chest now. The strike did nothing, and did not again when he struck it harder, the shaft of his weapons jarring his hands as it shook. He dropped it when he realised it wasn't working, and saw his friend's panicked look when the fluid was coming up to his chin. Honeydew was desperately trying to reach up and find some purchase to pull himself away from drowning, but the tanks were bare. Xephos rushed across to the complex computer and stared at it, looking for anything that might open the door.

"Come on, remember something!" he yelled trying to urge his mind into action. He looked up in time to see Honeydew take a lungful of air as the liquid flowed over his head. Xephos gave a last glance at the despondent flickering of the screen before he dashed across the floor and retook his polearm, throwing all his weight into a dozen fruitless strikes that bounced off the hard glass as Honeydew scrabbled against the door, panic and desperation turning to horror as he realised he might drown right there. Xephos stopped his pointless barrage and made himself look up at his friend through the cloudy fluid. "I'm sorry." he said, lungs heaving. Honeydew's eyes grew wide when the liquid was suddenly replaced by a thick miasma of steam, and the door slid back into the floor. Honeydew all but fell out of the tank, Xephos dropping his halberd to catch him as the dwarf's breath heaved.

"It's okay, you're out." Xephos sighed, holding Honeydew as he panted. "I'm not losing two friends today."

". . .Behind. . .you!" Honeydew coughed. Xephos turned and almost dropped his friend as two tanks on the right wall suddenly opened with a burst of steam. Honeydew got to his feet uneasily as from either tank a figure emerged from the steam. Xephos and Honeydew recoiled in shock as two absolutely identical copies of Honeydew stepped out of the steam, their beard's orange, their chests wide, and both as naked as the day they were born, which Xephos supposed it was.

"Gods. . .what!?" Xephos said as the two copies of Honeydew stared at them blankly for a moment, their expressions a perfect mirror of what Honeydew would've looked like.

"Oh my gods they're all naked!" the original Honeydew cried. At the loud cry the two copies suddenly turned and bolted, running down the rows of tanks towards the exit, turning to the left and running through another doorway, disappearing before Xephos and Honeydew could react. ". . .They're beautiful." Honeydew gasped after a moment. "So well made and handsome!" Xephos didn't make the effort to elbow him in the ribs.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked. "What did that machine do to you?"

"I don't know. Oh gods, I felt like I was going to drown. But instead it. . .copied me?" he looked to the doorway where the two copied Honeydews had vanished. "We should go after them. If they're anything like the original they'll be very intelligent. They might even help us."

"If they would help us then why did they run away?" Xephos asked, shuddering at the though of the destruction two more Honeydews could cause.

"Maybe they wanted some clothes?" Honeydew suggested. "Come on, let's go after them. There's nowhere else to go anyway!" he said, making for the door.

"Don't you need to rest?" Xephos called as he made to follow.

"No, this is far too interesting!" Honeydew said as they ran into the next room. It was wide and narrow, a long metal barrier separating the halves. They vaulted the barricade and made for the only door in the right corner, leading into a hallway. Xephos rounded the doorway just as at the far end of the hallway the a set of metal doors slid shut, a naked form's back visible as the crack faded.

"What happened?" Honeydew asked as he stepped into the hallway. "The door's shut."

"I don't know how they got through. I think they shut it behind them." Xephos replied as they walked down the corridor to the door. It held fast like it's twin, in spite of their efforts. A panel of switches hung from the wall beside the doorway, Xephos saw it, but tried to avoid looking at it.

"The door's not budging." Honeydew said, noticing the panel. "That might open it for us. You try do something with it, I don't know, maybe Jebus will send you another vision."

"They're not visions from Jebus!" Xephos hissed. "Fine, I'll give it a go." he sighed, standing and placing himself before the box, dozens of tiny switches inside. He stood there a moment, dreading what may happen and yet still trying to force it to occur. After a moment he sighed. "Nothing."

"Well, good thing I have a back-up plan." Honeydew said. Xephos turned back to him as the dwarf pulled two sticks of dynamite that they'd had since Mistral City out of the bandoleer around his chest. "'Ere we go 'ere we go!" he gave a maniacal grin as placed the two thick rods at the base of the door.

"Honeydew!" Xephos yelled, a moment later darting down the hallway as the dwarf pulled out his flint and steel.

"Ho ho ho, here we go!" he laughed, striking the gout of sparks onto the wicks of the red tubes. The fuses caught and went up in a sparkling crackle. "Here it comes!" Honeydew yelled, giving a whoop as he barreled out of the corridor and threw himself against the wall beside the entryway, Xephos across from him. No sooner than he covered his ears did a loud bang rocked the room and a gust of wind shot out of the tunnel fast enough to knock them over should they have been standing in the doorway. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" Honeydew clapped. He did not check the status of the door, his ecstasy was fueled by the explosion alone.

"And two more of you are running around!" Xephos spat, shaking his head as he re-entered the hallway. There were black scorch-marks surrounding the blast zone, and the two doors were now warped scraps of steel scattered across the floor of the next room. The corridor's floor and walls near the explosion had become warped and torn, inciting wary steps as the two made cautious way to the next room.

"That probably wasn't a good idea considering this thing's supposed to be alive." Xephos glanced at the walls.

"We're through aren't we?" was Honeydew's reply. The rooms they passed through only led one way, the path never splitting, and they followed it through a handful of rooms, their oddness now seemed pedestrian. One room however was stranger than the rest, they entered and found the metal walls were a dull red, the floor and ceiling too, with the indestructible pipes of Sentinel Blood flowing above them.

"Is this blood?" Xephos asked, the tone reminding him too much of Enoch's death.

"No, it's part of the metal." Honeydew said, standing over by one wall, peering closely at the metal with a dwarven eye. "I don't know what kind though. I'd like to know. It's very pretty."

"Pretty? Try morbid." Xephos said under his breath as he headed for the next doorway. Honeydew followed him through into a room ever more strange than the last. They stood at the end of a great circular hallway, the walls, floor, and ceiling combining in the red hues of the same metal. Spiraling around the corridor was a seam of glass, the sickly green Blood shown flowing past them like it was all around them. In a few places the glass had somehow shattered, and the blood oozed through, melting it's way through the metal floor and making the air stifling. "Holy cripes. . ." Xephos sighed. Honeydew looked as though he was ready to speak when a sound echoed down the long passage, the sound of a voice singing.

". . .I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole. . .Dig-a dig-a hole. . .I'm digging a hole. . ." the voice was slanted and halted, but sounded identical to Honeydew.

"He's singing it wrong." Honeydew scowled.

"He's intelligent, that much we know." Xephos said. "Let's go and try to find him."

"Did you hear how he sounded though?" Honeydew asked. "I don't think he is very intelligent, maybe it's just borrowed memories."

_Borrowed memories._ The idea ran through Xephos' mind like a fish in dark water, a though that unsettled him.

"Derfgy!" came another cry in the same stunted speech from down the curving tunnel. Xephos stopped, the sudden sound only partially the reason. He looked ahead of him two feet, a slim piece of string spanning the floor.

"You see? They're not right in the head-" Honeydew was saying when Xephos put out an arm to stop him.

"Look there." he pointed along the span of the string to the right wall, where fastened to the metal was a bundle of dynamite, a brass box fastened to the side and attached to the string. "This is a trap! A trap _they_ will have set!" Xephos peered ahead down the tunnel, but saw nothing.

"Woah," Honeydew said. "I guess they're not friendly. This is ingenious, though! Look at it! Only a true master would've been able to arm this!"

"Climb out of your own arsehole, they're your copies, not you." Xephos grinned, stepping over the tripwire.

"What? They're clever 's all I'm saying." Honeydew stepped over the wire and followed after Xephos.

"Look for the bombs, they'll be more obvious than the wires." Xephos advised as they darted past a stream of Blood, hardly daring to look at it.

"Ooh. . .They're clever these buggers. They're clever." Honeydew said, when his own voice began to overlap his.

"I can't see past me own beard!" cried the copy as it stood in the middle of the hallway some twenty yards away, only this one wasn't naked anymore. Now he was bedecked in heavy armor, it's plates intricate and covered in pipes and wires. Not even his eyes showed behind two portals of black glass, staring at them menacingly.

"What the hell is he wearing?" Xephos asked as the copy stood motionless across the floor. "Where did he get that?"

"Hello?" Honeydew said loudly, stepping closer. "Do you know who I am? Do you know who you are?" he asked. The copy stared back a moment as they came closer, then turned and ran from them, his armor not weighing him down a bit as he sprinted away. "Dammit, I want to talk to you!" Honeydew called after the dwarf. Xephos saw that the copy had dropped something, and stepped closer before he saw the fizzling fuse and the bundle of red dynamite.

"Oh shit, get back!" he tackled Honeydew backwards away from the bomb as it went off, the blast of scorching air sending them flat against the ground.

"What the fuck!" Honeydew growled. "He was just trying to drawn us in to the bomb!" Xephos got to his feet, looking after the doppelgänger, but he was gone. The bomb had been too far away from them too harm them, but it had left a huge dent in the floor, the blast shattering a section of the glass seam that wound about the tunnel, through which a tongue of green Blood was sliding across the floor, threatening to cut off the path.

"Oh gods, go go go!" Xephos cried, dragging Honeydew to his feet. "The Blood is about to cut off the path! Hurry!" he pushed Honeydew ahead, the two of them winding between the wall and the scorching Blood before the way disappeared.

"Where did he get all that stuff?" Honeydew gasped as they ran down the tunnel after the Honeydew copy. "And where's the other one?"

"He's probably ahead." Xephos theorised. "Why are they trying to kill us? What are they supposed to be? They look exactly like you."

"It was the machine that made them." Xephos said. "You have questions, ask it. All I need to know is that I'm the real one and those two are trying to kill us."

The tunnel continued to curve around to the right, and eventually the way opened into an absolutely enormous cavern of metal. The titanic room was made of the same red metal as the other two rooms had been, but the cavern was not bare. Hanging from points of white a huge spiked star stood in the room's center, the slightly twisting ends of it's points driving into the walls floor and ceiling as the huge heart balanced in the room's center, the core itself large enough to be a room. The entire structure glowed in the green aura of tubes of Blood that ran into it, it's solid surface had once shone but now was pitted in places. One thick arm drove into the floor where the tunnel dropped off, the rounded stem chiseled into a flat walkway leading to the heart of the thorny burr, all alight with the light of a hundred searing canals of Sentinel Blood. Xephos took a moment where he stood in marvel of the awesome spectacle, when along the length of the arm he saw a figure in gunmetal armour lumbering towards the forest of bleached spikes.

"Look, there he is!" Xephos pointed, Honeydew shaking out of his stupor at the sight of the cavern, his vision quickly focussing in on the shape of the impostor. Xephos laid down his halberd and drew his bow and pulled a steel-tipped arrow from his quiver. He drew back the arrow and pointed the bow skyward, loosing after a fraction of a second. the arrow raced through the hot air, arcing in a savage curved towards Honeydew's copy, smashing into the back of his armor. The impact made the dwarf stumble, but the arrow blasted apart on contact with the hard armour. "Dammit. These arrows aren't doing much good." Xephos sighed, glancing at Honeydew as he stopped to take up his polearm again.

"We'll just have to kill him the old-fashioned way." Honeydew said gruffly, stepping onto the bleached white arm of the star.

"You _want_ to kill him?" Xephos asked as they began to run, their boot's tapping on the material underfoot. "Also where the hell are we?" Xephos asked. "This stuff looks like bone, feels like it too."

". . .I think, it may be the heart." Honeydew guessed. "It would make sense, where else would this be on a statue? Unless it looks nothing like a person."

"He's gone into the other spikes now." Xephos pointed ahead to the mass of arms that sprung from the bony heart of the Sentinel.

"Oh great, he could go anywhere now. How will we find him?" Honeydew cursed.

"Keep going, the longed we wait the further away he gets." Xephos pushed Honeydew along. They navigated the perilous path with a level head, and were approaching the heart when Xephos saw the ironclad figure walking across one long bony arm, west from where they approached the heart from the south. "Look, there!" Xephos pointed across to him, stopping Honeydew. They watched as the copy knelt on the arm and slowly lowered himself into an invisible hole in the arm and dropped within.

"He's trying to jook us." Honeydew sneered. "Not so fast sonny!" he laughed as he started off again for the heart. Where the arm met the base a long narrow stair came down led up to the top of the round core. They stepped cautiously up the railless stairway, wary of the long drop into the dark below, the stair taking them to the roof of the heart's core, where avenues carved into bone ran between thick fingers of bone reaching out to the ceiling. The winding paths between the pocked bone was hauntingly beauteous, their footsteps tapping out into an unending echo through the cavern.

"How are we going to corner him?" Honeydew asked as he led the way through the pillars, the ground beneath their feet sloping ever more now. "I think that one of us need to lure him out."

"Which one do you reckon that'll be?" Xephos asked, dragging a hand along the bone walls. "Do you think he;s still got the same friendship towards me? If he's got the same attitude as you do towards his copies than he probably wants to kill you."

"Oh, maybe!" Honeydew agreed. They came now to a gap in two bone arms, a high stairway leading down to another bone arm, it's topside carved into a path, a tiny hole visible halfway across the length. "Ah, this is the way!" he said, taking to the stairs. Xephos followed him down and across the high bridge, the two stopping over the hole in the surface of the hollow, a floor clearly visible below. "Right you go in first." Honeydew suggested. "Oh, and actually, offer him a jaffa-cake! That'll work!" Honeydew dug through his pack, producing the last tube of the dwarven confection, the others having been eaten by them over their travels. He handed the card tube to Xephos, who took it with a bemused look.

"So I'll offer him one of these and then secretly murder him?" he asked.

"That's right." Honeydew nodded. Xephos sighed and lowered himself into the hole, Honeydew following after him as quietly as he could. The inside was made of the same white bone-like material as the exterior, and lit with white lights leading away from the heart and towards the wall.

"So I'll lead the way and hope he doesn't attack me." Xephos began walking down the bone tunnel as quietly as his feet could permit.

"I'll hang back so he doesn't see me." Honeydew whispered. "I'll have my crossbow ready." he winked.

"How do we know he's not ages away though?" Xephos asked as they approached the end of the tunnel.

"He didn't look like he was in a hurry when he came in here. He probably thinks that he's shaken us." Honeydew shrugged. Soon a dull banging began to echo down the tunnel. Xephos raised his weapon as they made their way to the end, coming to a corner in the path, the constant banging coming from around it. Xephos peered around the side of the wall and into the room. The passage opened onto a catwalk, and on the floor of the room below him there stood one of Honeydew's copies, facing a corner, bashing his fists mercilessly against a wall.

"Derfgy. . .derfgy. . .holl." came his pained shout as he bashed his already broken fists into the wall, totally unmarred in spite of his vicious drubbing. Xephos pulled his head back around the corner to Honeydew, waiting with his crossbow cocked.

"He's right there." he whispered. "Should I just approach him slowly, like I'm trying to corner a cat?" he asked.

"Yeah, just try to keep him still." Honeydew agreed.

"He's not the one wearing armour, he's the other one. He's just naked and punching a wall. I think he's broken his hands. I don't think he'll be much trouble."

"Is the other one there too?" Honeydew asked.

"No, I don't think so." Xephos shook his head.

"Well get in there then." Xephos turned and quietly walked around the corner onto the raised metal catwalk. As he made for the stairs at one end, Honeydew stalked to the other, crouching in the dark with his crossbow raised. The copy hadn't noticed them, and was still grunting as it savagely beat his hands on the metal, pain mixed in with his cries. Xephos reached the floor ten yards away from him, and stopped to look up at Honeydew crouching in the shadows, crossbow ready. The dwarf nodded and his copy, and Xephos took two steps forwards, grip tightening around the card tube as he walked towards the naked Honeydew copy.

"Honeydew?" he said loudly. The copy stiffened and turned, his stance resembling a wounded animal as he tried to back into the corner, broken fists raised. "Honeydew, I have jaffas for you!" Xephos said, extending the packet of cakes, keeping the other hand on his halberd, which he held seemingly casually. The dwarf suddenly perked up, looking excited, yet wariness still dwelled in those eyes. Xephos called to him again and held out the tube further. The copy stood and stepped away from the corner, watching Xephos warily with Honeydew's face. He came closer and he at last stood only feet away from Xephos, unable to use his bent and twisted fingers, the copy snatched the packet away between both hands and began to tear at it in a fashion reminiscent of a dog with a pig's ear. Only a moment after the copy had grasped the tube away from him, Xephos twisted the halberd into both hands and slashed, the bladed point slicing across the copy's midriff. He dropped the jaffa cakes and cried out in Honeydew's voice as his entrails seethed from his split belly. The tube hadn't yet hit the floor when a bolt flew out of the darkness and embedded itself in the dwarf's neck, just below the left ear. The scream died off as the copy staggered a moment, bloodstained hands still clutched to his belly, trying to hold his guts inside him as blood ran down his legs. His dark eyes stared at Xephos, as his arms fell away, and as he swayed he opened his mouth.

"Xephos. . ." he rattled dully as he collapsed onto his side, the red of his blood mixing with the red of the metal floor. Xephos felt a chill through him like he'd been stabbed with an icicle, that moment when the copy had met his eyes he'd seen sadness and betrayal mirrored back at his hard face, and he felt guilt for the naked, mutilated form on the floor.

"Got him!" Honeydew cried as he swung under the guard-rail and onto the floor. "That's one less Honeydew, but it still makes one too many. Where could the other one have gone?" he asked as he walked over to Xephos, stopping to pick up the harried tube of jaffa cakes. He did not even glance at the body. Xephos forced his gaze away from the image of his dead friend.

"How many ways out of here are there?" Xephos asked, distracted, his mind still foggy from the act of killing his best friend, if not literally then in some twisted way that still left his mind feeling dark and his soul harrowed.

"Only one." Honeydew pointed past him to a doorway to another room. "Hopefully we don't go any deeper. We've been down here nearly a whole day, and I'm beginning to miss even the bloody desert."

"Well that's something." Xephos said in a deadpan tone. He led the way the other room, a small cube of red with a long corridor leading away from it, the floor of the corridor with a wide rail running down it, leading back to a launching podium at the mouth of the corridor in the room. The track behind the launcher wound about the room in a large loop, four large rail-carts resting on the rails.

"Oh gods." Xephos' breath caught in his mouth.

"Shit, rails." Honeydew sighed. "There's no Blood this time, Xephos. It'll be fine. We need to use them to be as fast as possible. If the other copy is smart enough to rig up those traps he will've used the carts."

"I know." Xephos said in annoyance. "I wasn't suggesting we walk. We should only take one though, there's enough room onboard for two of us, and since we're only taking one path it would make sense not to get separated."

"Good idea." Honeydew agreed. "Well, we need to hurry. Help me push this cart up onto the launcher." he said as he went to a rear corner of the first cart and began to push it. With Xephos helping it was no trouble getting the mass of metal up onto the pedestal, the bulk settling between the two wheels. Honeydew got in first and then gave Xephos a hand up into the dusty cart, staring down the very long, straight tunnel ahead. "You ready?" Honeydew asked as he reached out for the lever on the right side of the contraption.

"Let's just get out of here." Xephos said. Honeydew pulled the lever and thudded back into Xephos as the cart shot off the pedestal and sped down the tunnel. Xephos wondered how far ahead the other copy was, and hoped that if he had to kill it that it had that helmet on. He couldn't bear to look onto Honeydew's face as he killed him again. He resisted the urge to look back down the lengthening tunnel to the room behind them, where the body of Honeydew would lie for an eternity.


	40. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter40

Chapter 40: Facility 4

"When are we going to stop!?" Xephos asked as he leaned into the back of the heavy cart, hot air whipping past him as Honeydew reared forward at the front of the cart like a figurehead.

"I don't know!" Honeydew replied, yelling over the rattle of the wheels on the track.

"It feels like we've been on here for ages!" Xephos sighed. "Where are we even going?! I hope your copy leads us to the surface!"

"We're not going any deeper, so that's good!" Honeydew turned his head to glance at Xephos, slumped in the rear. He turned back to watch the tracks as they sped down the long, straight corridor. The slats between the rails faded to blurs as they were eaten up by the cart's wheels, and yet far ahead on the left Honeydew noticed a break in the long corridor, a segment of wall not there, suggesting a room. "Look, Xephos! I think there's a room ahead-" Honeydew began, turning fully in the cart, his inattention to the tracks making him fail to seem the explosive device set into the middle of the tracks. The cart hit it at speed and flew forwards, the fireball behind them flinging Xephos and Honeydew from their positions and into the air, flying further down the tunnel. The two landed heavily, Xephos awkwardly tucking and rolling with halberd in hand, the mass of the rail-cart landing upside down where he'd been not a second before, with Honeydew stumbling and falling flat onto his chest ahead of Xephos.

"Careful!" Honeydew coughed as he got to his feet hurriedly. "You're not hurt are you? That cheeky little bastard left another trap. It could've killed us!" he gestured back to the blast area in the corridor, where much of the floor was gone, and Sentinel Blood dripping lazily from a rupture in the ceiling. "You alright?" he asked again.

"I good." Xephos nodded. "But what do we do now? He's probably ages ahead of us and now we don't have a cart!"

"Well he must've gotten off at some point to set that, so there must be a station or stopping point close. There might be other carts. Actually," Honeydew turned, facing down the corridor, looking towards the room on the left hardly a hundred and a half yards away. "There is something down that way." he pointed. "It might have another way to get onto the tracks."

"You think so? Make's sense I guess." Xephos peered towards the apparent platform. "Let's go then, we don't want the gap to grow between us and him." he said, setting off at a run. They made it to the platform in a matter of minutes, heaving but not exhausted. There was indeed a small station there, where the rail came to one side and another joined onto it so more carts could be loaded onto the main track. Yet that was not all that was there. Behind the station a large room opened up, and as Xephos stepped through the old carts on the loading rail he saw a sign standing on a white pillar before the room, on it the words "CLONING FACILITY 4" were writ in dark blocky letters. Beyond it in the room stood rows and rows of the same tanks that Honeydew had stepped into, some shattered by some means and others whole, their rows shining like gleaming eggs in the white lights.

"Woah, what is _this?"_ Honeydew exclaimed.

"I don't know. . ." Xephos said, walking right along the columns, gazing at the tanks. He noted each row had thirteen tanks, and he counted five rows, making sixty-five tanks in all. He noted that each tank had a lever next to it, presumably a lever for opening the tanks in emergencies. He was about to turn and head back for the carts as he reached the last row, when he noticed something unusual, that being one tank, still whole, was filled with a cloud of milky white.

"Come on, we need to catch up with the last copy!" Honeydew called.

"No, wait! There's something over here." he said slowly, staring at the tank, the sixth in the last row. "One of the tanks are filled with that weird stuff that was in the one you stood in when the copies were created."

"What? Do you think he's in there, the other copy I mean." Honeydew rushed over to him, stopping a distance away from the vat. "He wouldn't have tried to copy himself would he? Jebus, how thick would _those _copies be?"

"Let's find out." Xephos gripped his halberd and began to walk down the rows of tanks until he came to the sixth, the interior so clouded it appeared a screen of total white, and nothing could be seen within.

"This doesn't look like what happened when I went in." Honeydew said lowly, drawing his weapons. "He's been in there too long. Mine opened after the stuff reached the top. Suppose something's gone horribly wrong and he's drowned?"

"That seems like too much to ask for considering our luck." Xephos said grimly, eyeing the lever next to the right side of the tank. "Pull that." he said to Honeydew. "See what it does. It may open." The dwarf reached for the lever cautiously, his other hand still gripping his short-sword, remembering the strength of the armour as it shattered the arrow Xephos had fired. He kept his eyes trained on the white within as he hauled the rod forward and out of the wall. The tank gave a hiss, and then the white liquid turned to white steam, and suddenly the door slid open, and a form tumbled out. Xephos and Honeydew had their weapons raised as the body hit the ground, but they immediately realised it was not the copy, for the man that lay at their feet was just that; a man, not dwarf.

His clothes were all worn and bore many tears, through which they could see his skin, so pale it appeared sallow. His hair was a dull, uninteresting brown, and while his garments might once have been fine, he appeared now to have been harried to some degree before his incarceration in the tank. To Xephos and Honeydew's startlement, the man gave a cough and began to struggle to stand. At Xephos' suggestion, Honeydew grabbed his arm and lifted him to his feet, his form so thin and emaciated that the task didn't even try Honeydew's strength. The man blinked at them, his eyes so bloodshot that they appeared pink. He hesitantly tried to straighten his white shirt, seemingly at loss for words.

"Hello." Xephos said slowly, and in a hard tone.

"H-hello." the man's voice strengthened as he spoke. "I suppose I should thank you for getting me out of there. I though I was done for when I went in." hie voice was a mix between highs like blaring trumpets and flat lows, a gravely tone all throughout.

"Who are you? Who put you in there?" Xephos asked, glancing at the tank.

"My name is Webley Grizwold. I hail from Lastwatch Hold." he gave a series of rattling coughs, bending double, brushing away Honeydew when he stepped closer before standing straight. "And I can tell you that it was-" he stopped, looking confused.

"It was. . . I'm sorry, I cannot seem to remember.

_Lastwatch? _Xephos thought. _But Lastwatch has been destroyed for years. . ._ "My name is Xephos, and this is Honeydew, my friend. Do you know how long you've been in there, Webley?" Xephos asked.

"I'm afraid I cannot say I know either. I seem to remember passing out as I was forced to inhale that ghastly white fluid. Funnily I could breathe in the stuff, but it put me quite to sleep." he sighed, staring again at Xephos and Honeydew. "Say, you'd probably have a better idea than me as to how long I've been in here. How long has it been since Ranging Valkyrie left Lastwatch, hmm? A month, two? You _are_ the rescue party, no?" Xephos sighed.

"Webley, I'm afraid it's been quite a bit longer than that." he breathed.

"Really? Did it take you that long to find us-" it seemed only then that Webley saw the bony state of his arms. He started, then fumbled across his chest and felt at his legs, gaping at the state of his body. "Yes. . ." he gasped. ". . .quite a bit longer."

"Nearly a hundred years longer." Honeydew commented.

"What are you talking about?" Webley asked, voice sounding as though he was attempting to sound scandalised, but beneath that was the sound of fear.

"Lastwatch Hold was swallowed up by the Sands decades ago." Xephos said. "I don't know how long you've been in there, but a lot has changed since you went in. Basically the world's in a whole lot of deep shit and me and my friend here might well be the only ones who can help it. What can you tell us about what happened here?"

"I. . . I am sorry. I'm afraid I cannot remember anything before I was put in that tank." he Webley groaned.

"Wait a second," Honeydew said. "you said your name was Grizwold? Did you come here as part of and archeological expedition? Was a man named Enoch one of your partners?" he asked.

"Ah? No! Oh no, you are thinking of another Grizwold. More correctly, of my great-grandfather, Horatio Grizwold, who was a renowned adventurer. He came here years ago before me with an expedition from Lastwatch. He returned alone, claiming that his associates were blinded by ambition. Yes, I do think Enoch was one of their names." Webley nodded. "I am a proud member of the Grizwold family, and have read a great deal about my forefathers, but how do you know of him?"

"Well," Xephos began. "see, we-" he stopped as Webley suddenly stumbled to the ground.

"Are you okay!?" Honeydew blurted.

"I'm not sure I am. . ." Webley allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. "Gods know how long I was in that machine, and what it may have done to me. I need to get back to civilisation, or at least a healer!" he coughed. Xephos and Honeydew shared a look. They could not afford to be dragging dead weight through the guts of the Sentinels, and they needed to be a quick as possible. "I think that I know a way out, and am quite capable of navigating through the desert. Please, you must help me!" he begged. Xephos looked down at him. _A way out? That could be what we need, and a navigator as well. He might be able to help us read the maps and find where we need to go._

"Honeydew, help him get to one of the carts." he said.

"Xephos. . ." Honeydew said lowly as Webley let out a rattling sigh.

"Come on, we need to be out of here as quickly as possible." Xephos cut him off. "I'll get a cart, you get him to it." he said, turning and heading for the loading track at the station. He dropped down onto the rails behind a large cart identical to the one they'd ridden in before. He pushed hard against it until it was nestled at the mouth of the loading track in a launcher, where Honeydew stood, an arm under Webley's sunken shoulders, the dwarf's face still dark.

"There you go, Webley." he said as he dropped Webley into the cart, hopping into the front after him. The cart was almost snug when Xephos pulled himself up into the rear.

"This track's the way out?" he asked Webley, pointing ahead.

"Yes. Follow it and we'll soon be out." Webley nodded earnestly.

"Follow it? Aye, that I can do." Honeydew said bluntly, tugging the lever outside the cart, sending the wheels spinning as the cart shot onto the main track with a cry from Webley. The tunnel raced past them, and soon the walls changed from deep red to the same dull gunmetal of the outer reaches of the Sentinel. As Honeydew and Xephos stood vigilant at the fore and aft of their steel ship, Webley sat with his knees tucked into his chest between them. Xephos ducked below the edges of the cart as Honeydew kept his eyes trained on the rails, searching for any more items of foul intent.

"What do you know about this place we're in?" Xephos asked cryptically.

"It's a Sentinel, that is a giant mechanical-"

"We are aware of that." Xephos nodded, wanting to try another question. "What do you remember about coming here? When do your memories stop being clear?"

"I cannot remember what happened in here, but I can, if hardly, remember coming here." Webley shook with every judder of the rails. "I can remember, I was sleeping out in the desert in my tent, but I had a nightmare. Yes. . .that's right, in my nightmare a terrible pale man loomed over me. . .and that's all I can remember until I awoke here." Xephos once more felt the hand of ice clenching about his heart. Somehow Webley was caught up in this too, maybe only by accident, but he was of importance now, he was sure of it.

"Spider!" Honeydew suddenly called. He raised his crossbow and pulled back the drawstring as Xephos stood, looking down the tracks as they rushed towards a black form on the track. Honeydew nocked a bolt into his weapon and as the spider became aware of them it began to rush foolishly towards them as the gap closed. ". . .Easy. . .easy. . ." Honeydew muttered as the two forces were about to collide. The spider suddenly leaped at them, and Honeydew fired off his bolt, the shaft sinking up to it's fletching in the left largest eye of the mob. Honeydew and Xephos both ducked as the body of the spider flew over them, tumbling onto the tracks behind them.

"That was close." Xephos said, poking his head back over the edge.

"That was cool." Honeydew added, standing and turning to face the rails again. Xephos leaned back against the rim as the cart raced along, watching Webley as he fidgeted. It was only now that Xephos realised how young the man was. When he'd emerged from the tank his physique had convinced Xephos he was as old as Peculier, but he now saw that the man was barely older than himself, something which, admittedly, he did not know truthfully.

He'd taken his birthday from the day he'd "fallen from the sky in a comet of metal" on the 17 of June, an occasion he himself did not recall, only waking up in the mountains surrounding Dwergholm with Honeydew and two other dwarves leaning over him in confusion. The dwarves had approximated that his age in human-years would be somewhere around twenty-five or twenty-seven. To Xephos, all that number meant was that there were some twenty years he'd missed out on. He'd looked at children and been envious in those early days, envious that they had a childhood. All he had was blackness and the faint memory of a woman's form in a bright light. Sometimes he'd wondered if the dwarves were right about his origins. When he'd been brought back to Dwergholm and the people heard that he was found at the heart of the fallen star he was proclaimed as an angel of Jebus, some hypothesising him to be a fallen angel cast out of the Aether for evil deeds. The Grand Duke of Dwergholm had needed to stamp out crowds of angered dwarves who wanted him executed, and had sent him to live with Honeydew, who as an unusually tall dwarf had the only lodgings he was able to live in comfortably. Honeydew had been wary of him in those days, insisting on sitting in on the questioning sessions the Grand Duke would have with Xephos if the man was going to live with him. By the time that the Square of Nine in Lowest Ragan had admitted they could not draw any conclusions from his story, Xephos had bonded with his roommate, and when granted freedom he'd chosen to stay with his new friend. Two years had passed before the two decided to leave the desert hold of Dwergholm indefinitely to adventure, and a further year and a half came to pass before they found themselves trying to build a home below a mountain somewhere in the east. They had named their cave-home the Yog-cave, the dwarven prefix for strong added to cave so that it might be as strong as the hands and wills of those who'd built it. Xephos wasn't sure if they'd ever intended to go back west to the Warm Lands. He remembered their journey, the frightful crossing of the high Dorianne Mountains, and their journeys through the unknown forests and cold hills beyond.

"I look up to my great-grandfather a good deal you know." Webley said lowly, almost to himself. Xephos nearly didn't hear him over the rattling rails. "He was looting hidden tombs when Verigan was just a baby. I strove to be like him, but I fear I will never match his achievements."

"What did he have to do with this place?" Xephos crouched next to him. Webley looked across at him with weary eyes.

"He came here with a band of researchers to study this metal form in the Sands. He was the one who realised the structure for what it was and fled when the others wouldn't listen. They never returned. Professor Grizwold told his tale to the Templar Captain at Verigan's Hold, but they kept it quiet and threatened him with expulsion from the Templar's charity if he should reveal it to another." he glanced at Honeydew and back to Xephos. "But I can see from you two that he was not loyal to that oath. How did you come to know of the Sentinels? And you said the world is in danger, is that from the Sentinels as well?"

"We. . .were informed by the leader of Verigan's hold, Adaephon." Xephos said. It was only a half truth, but the lie was sturdy enough.

"Adaephon?" Webley said. "He's still alive? He knew my great-grandfather towards the end of his life. Adaephon was hardly out of his school years at the time."

"Well, he might not be alive since we saw him last." Xephos said bluntly. "He is a very old man, and that's without the current situation along The Wall. The Wall has fallen, and the Sands are spreading, Adaephon sent us -and another- to find a way to recall them, or just stop them."

"There was one more of you?" Webley asked, then turning very dour at the pained look that Xephos wore. ". . .I see. They must've known the way would be treacherous."

"Yeah, he did." Xephos nodded.

"Oh! You might want to grab on, the rails are going to start going up, and quite steeply too!" Honeydew cried. Xephos stood and saw him point down the corridor to where the passage and rails swept into a steep ascent. "Looks like you were right Webley. If this goes up it must head out somewhere."

"Gods I hope so. I'd almost welcome the desert heat if only to see the sky again." Xephos agreed as he gripped onto the sides of the cart while he leaned against the back.

"Up we go. . !" Honeydew cried loudly as they sped towards the slope, their speed not decreasing even as they sped up it. The sudden change in gravity made Webley slide across the bed of the cart into Xephos' legs. He apologised profusely as he grasped the side of the cart, fighting to hold on with his weak body as they raced upwards. Xephos tired to figure out the distance they were traveling upwards, but their speed was too fast for him to get a grip of their ascent. The path carried them upwards and toward the surface, eventually slowing as the track leveled out and rounded a corner after many long minutes of rising. The cart rolled into a circular room and thudded to a halt before a series of computer screens.

"Where the hell are we now?" Xephos asked as he leaped out of the cart and onto stable ground. The room was built in the shape of a circle, the half across from them more elevated than where they stood. Computers were fixed to every wall, and above the raised platform a tear in the low ceiling spilled a gout of yellowed sand through the roof and across a third of the floor.

"How long was I trapped in that infernal machine?" Webley growled as Honeydew helped him out of the cart.

"A long time, I should think." Honeydew answered. "Do you recognise this place?" he asked.

". . .Yes, I think so." Webley staggered across the floor. "We are just below the surface, yes I remember now!" he cried, falling onto his knees at the mound of sand below the roof. "Just above here!" he grabbed at the sand.

"The surface is through there?" Xephos said, nodding at the gap where the sand had flowed through, filled with golden grains.

"Yes, if we dig up through that hole we should be outside." he nodded. "But what do we do once out there? I may be able to navigate the desert, but I have no maps and I cannot find a way without at least that."

"We do have maps." Xephos turned to Honeydew. "Show him the maps we have. He might be able to help us make sense of them more."

"Alright." Honeydew took the map case off his shoulder. "Peculier said we might find another map in this godawful place. It looks like he was wrong." he commented sadly.

"Peculier? That was his name?" Webley's brows knitted.

"Yes." Xephos replied stiffly as Honeydew began pulling out many of the sheafs of paper from the tube, handing them to Webley, who frowned at them, giving an occasional nod.

"Some of these are odd. . .but I think I can make use of them. You mean to follow the trail here?" he pointed to the red dotted line.

"Yes." Xephos said. Webley went back to looking over the old maps and the charts Adaephon had given them.

"Xephos. . .do you remember this?" Honeydew said slowly, holding one last map. he stepped over to Xephos, holding the map before him, whispering so that Webley would not overhear. "It's part of Karpath's map, do you recognise it?" The map showed the same style of drawn dunes as the other maps in the series, but instead of a hand in the center there lay a large rectangle like a boxed wall, a large tree drawn within, and the red dotted line running past the foot of it and off to the right side of the page.

"Where did you get this?" Xephos hissed. "This isn't one of the maps we had before, where did you get it?"

"I don't know, I just found it in Peculier's map case. . ." he trailed off, staring ahead. "Peculier," he said. "he must've found it and put it away without us noticing."

"But why keep it from us? Why make us carry on, especially with what happened next?" Xephos gritted his teeth. "What was he up to? What did he know?"

"These maps, where did you get them?" Webley asked from his seat at the foot of the sandhill.

"It was that map used by Verigan and Karpath." Xephos commented idly, biting his tongue at the last moment when he realised what he had said. he glanced over at Honeydew, who was wincing. Webley gaped at him, mouth working for a few attempts before he could finally get words out.

"Karpath!? Verigan!?" he gasped. "But, that would mean. . .you are heading to the Tomb of the Templar Kings!" he whispered the last. Xephos gritted his teeth at his transparency.

"Yes." he admitted. "We're following it to the Tombs. What we're going to do there I have no fucking idea."

"But, this shows the way to what I've been searching for all this time! The Tomb of the Templar Kings; long forgotten resting place of the kings of old, and the grounds of the last battle between the people and the Sands. Verigan's grave. . ." he gasped at the last. He tried to scramble to his feet. "This is a place that hundreds have searched for and never found. It is the great archeological mystery of our time." he explained breathlessly, falling to his knees before them. "If I could be there to describe it, it would be one of the greatest discoveries in a century. Please, let me accompany you. If I could be find it, I would be counted alongside my great-grandfather in the greatest-"

"But you _can_ use these maps to find the way?" Xephos interrupted.

"Yes." Webley breathed hoarsely. "But we will do no good trapped in here. We need to get to the surface. You must dig." he pointed upwards to the hole above them. "The desert lies above."

"How far above?" Xephos asked, Honeydew grumbling as he pulled the old entrenching tool from the Battle at the Breach from his pack.

"It is only just above us." Webley said as Honeydew scrambled halfway up the pile until the horns on his helm touched the ceiling. The first heave of his edged shovel swept away a swathe of sand and as he dug out another, dim daylight poured through. "Oh, daylight!" he cried, digging away more sand until the hole grew. He threw the shovel out of the opening, hearing it land with a dull sound on the outside. "I'll go through." Honeydew said, reaching up and grabbing the edges of the metal shell as he began to pull himself through towards the open sky, hues of peach staining it's wide wings. "Help Webley get through." he said back to Xephos as he wiggled out into the open.

"Alright, come on Webley." Xephos sighed, helping the sickly man to his feet. He looked up to see Honeydew standing at the edge of the gap, ready to help pull him up from above. "Let's get out of here." he half pulled Webley up the pile of sand to below Honeydew, where with Honeydew's help he was lifted into the desert above.

"I cannot even make it up a small hill." Webley lamented. "I won't survive another trek into the Sands. What will we do?" he groaned as he passed through the gap. Xephos wondered a similar thing as he pulled himself after him into the glorious openness that spanned above.


	41. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter41

Chapter 41: Far from Home.

Above the hollow emptiness of the Sentinel the desert spanned all about in it's eternal dunes. Xephos, Honeydew, and Webley stood on a flat plateau, the weary metal of the Sentinel's carapace dusted with sand under their feet. The desert spanned eastward in a long flat plain, and to the west small hills rose out of the desert not far from where they stood around the hole in the metal.

"Where are we?" Xephos asked, looking around at their surroundings. He stared off to the south, noting distant stand of very tall cactuses growing in a thick group atop the hills. He then looked about their exit and saw that scattered everywhere atop the shell of the Sentinel were dozens of pieces of old wood, beams and panels from some broken structure.

"We're pretty far out, I'd say." Honeydew glanced up at the sun, low in the east over the flat expanse of sand, the sky about it ringed red. "Very far out."

"What do we from here then?" Xephos asked, feeling despair growing within him. "Where do we go?"

"I can. . ." Webley groaned. ". . .oh gods, I can navigate using the maps. Only, I need to rest. Gods." he coughed, all but falling to sit. "I'll just stay here a moment. I think it would be best if you two went off to scout ahead."

"Just leave you here?" Xephos said.

"I'll be fine. The desert sun is not so high yet that I'll be at risk, and if you take too long I'll just crawl back into that hole I just got out of." he sighed.

"Well. . . what would we be looking for. . ?" Honeydew asked.

"Anything of note. Structures, especially things out of the ordinary, if anything about this place is ordinary." Webley huffed. "But mainly look for a place with walls, I think that was what was described on the map."

"You want us to just leave you out here in the open Webley?" Xephos asked again. "What if something comes out here? What if you hurt yourself getting back into the hole?"

"We could build a shelter easily enough." Honeydew stated. "There's sand everywhere that could be used for foundations, and all this wood about could be used for a roof and beams and such."

"That sounds better." Xephos nodded. "You just stay there Webley and we'll build you a shelter." Xephos looked at the withered man. "You should make the foundations with sand while I gather wood for the roof." he said to Honeydew. Honeydew nodded and picked up his shovel from where it lay on the sand. He set to creating a set of low walls from sand with a small gap for a door. He built up the walls to knee height and reinforced them as Xephos piled up planks and panels that he found strewn about. He even came back with a large piece of stained canvas as Honeydew dug the floor out of the hollow he'd made, the size of a very large tub. "Will these work?" Xephos asked as he laid down a last armful on the pile. He glanced off to Webley, watching from where he sat ten yards away.

"Perfect." Honeydew grinned. "Now we can make a lovely roof for Webley." he said as he picked up a plank. The two of them laid the slats of wood across the tops of the low walls, laying the wide canvas over it and laying it down with more wood to keep it in place.

"This looks wonderful!" Webley proclaimed as he hobbled over to them. Xephos pulled his head out of the doorway as he peered inside. The interior was obviously sandy, but quite roomy, enough room for any of them to lie down in, and the canvas would keep the sun off even in the heat of the afternoon.

"I think it is ready for you to go in." Xephos said. "There's this here too, that you can use as a door." he lifted a panel from the ground and laid it against the wall beside the low doorway. "I think it should keep you sheltered until we get back from wherever." he stood as Webley stumped closer. "Honeydew will leave you with some food so you can recover, also a bit of water." he held out his refilled water bottle and lobbed it into the hole.

"In ya go then." Honeydew nodded when Webley didn't get t his hands and knees to enter. the low door. "We're burning daylight, we want to cover as much ground as we can before the sun gets too high." he added, remembering the heat of the previous day.

"Before you leave, friends, there are some other things I think I should tell you about. The things that I can remember, that is." Webley said. Hearing his voice was a shock, it was not at that moment weak or stained, but curiously grand and proud, like a general addressing his men. "What for me was last month is now possibly decades ago, but it was then that we, the Templars began to notice the Sands were spreading, and was beginning to encroach of Lastwatch Hold. I was leading Ranging Valkyrie out into the desert to investigate what might be causing it, though from my grandfather's writings I had some idea of what might be occurring. We found the hand of the Sentinel, we thought that it could give us information on how to stop the sand, but what we uncovered was far more terrible." he spoke now not with a grand and proud tone, but a bewildered speech, as though he were not speaking the words, only listening, and what he hear shocked him. Xephos though he must be remembering as he spoke. "The Sands are not evil, but simply a trap, a defense mechanism, a creation designed to trap the Sentinels under the earth, and keep them rusted and broken. For thousands of years the Sands lay dormant, but we could not find out why it was spreading only now. This discovery led to only more questions; what were the Sentinels, who put them under the Sand?" Webley shook his head as he paused. "But I do remember now-" he said. "we found evidence of many more Sentinels, and this I know for certain: If they should rise again, the world is doomed. The machines were defeated once before, by whom, I do not know. But with that map, we might discover how to do it again."

"So the desert's _not _evil." Honeydew sighed. "What a twist." he moaned.

"Wait, so there isn't any reference these Sentinels in history _anywhere?"_ Xephos asked. "You sound like you know your history, is there _no_ sign of them? Whoever fought them made no mention?"

"Nothing." Webley nodded. "Nothing written that is." he made a stop, hesitant. "But I have a theory. You may have seen, in often forgotten places of the world, machines so elaborate they have no place in this land."

". . .yes, we have." Honeydew said. "In Skyhold and Stoneholm."

"A friend said they were the remains of some Precursor race." Xephos agreed. "Come to think of it, the stuff was nearly identical to what's inside the Sentinel." Xephos turned and looked at the hole in the sand, the skeleton of the beast below it.

"Exactly." Webley said. "But what if that Precursor race was the ones who built them? Created false life in a machine? Only, what if the life they put into their creations turned on them? The Sentinels have a great and terrible power." Webley sighed. "It is my belief that the Sentinels went to war with their own creators. And I believe that-"

". . .That the Sentinels won. They killed them all." Xephos finished. "It makes sense. Where are all the Precursors if not?" he breathed deeply in thought. "But still, how did they get put underground?"

"But this is all wasting time." he shook his head again and looked at the shelter they'd made for him. "Thank you for this, I'll go inside and try to rest. But you two need to get going." he crouched awkwardly and began to crawl through the hole in the foundation. "Oh, and if you see any cactus forests, don't go in. They's far too dangerous." he added as he pulled himself around in the small room within. "This is quite nice actually."

"Okay, now stay in here, Webley." Xephos said, passing him in half a packet of dried meat that Adaephon had supplied them with. "Try not to eat all of it, gods know how long we'll be out here for. And drink too." he added as Webley took the food and searched about for the water that Xephos had thrown in earlier. "I'll place the door over the entrance as we go. Is there anything else we might need to know?"

"Just remember what I said about staying away from and cactus forests you might find. They're infested with mobs."

"Okay man." Honeydew said. "Rest up, we'd better be off." he put a hand on Xephos' shoulder and began dragging him away. Xephos shook him off and stood, moving the panel over the small doorway and shutting Webley off from view.

"Rest well!" he called as he turned away, a weak reply muffled by the canvas above him. Honeydew was already walking off towards the nearby hills, leaving Xephos to ran after him. The sun was already beginning to cast a warmth across the sand when they began up the shallow gradient of the nearest slope.

"Do we actually have any idea where we're going?" Honeydew asked, turning to look back at the small shelter not far away from them. "I mean, apart from: "Look for landmarks", and that isn't much to go on."

"We should try to find high-ground and examine the area." Xephos suggested. "That way we'll have a better understanding of our surroundings and might see something." he passed Honeydew up the slope, the hills eventually shallowing to a sandy plateau.

"That's a good idea, take the high ground." Honeydew agreed, scanning across the plateau, a bluff of sandstone cliffs skirting it to the west, the hills continuing at their tops. To the south he could see along the hills what appeared to be a forest in the desert, stands of cactuses covering the hills. "Look over there, a cactus forest, I think." he said, pointing, but Xephos' head stared north, right along the plateau to something in the wall of sandstone.

"What is that?" Xephos said, taking a step towards it.

"What's what?" Honeydew asked.

"This, there's something strange over here in the wall!" he called backwards as he ran along the foot of the cliff until he reached what he'd seen, the black bones of a colossal reptilian beast pressed into the cliff-face. He stepped back, looking in wonder at the whole spectacle, a coiling skeleton of bone turned to rock, the leviathan's head rearing in a time-frozen roar as bony wings flared and claws tore at the red rock it was held within. Honeydew caught up to him, and stared in awe before he could begin to speak.

"Woah. . ." he breathed, walking further back than Xephos. "It's a fossil. . ! And of a dragon by the looks!" he gasped. "I told you about these once, remember? How sometimes long dead things in the ground turn to rock. Oh _gods _they'd love to see this in Dwergholm!"

"How big is it?" Xephos asked.

"Looks like thirty feet at the least." Honeydew whistled. And we can't even see the end of the tail, look it goes into the ground there. Blimey it'd have been huge."

"I wonder how it got here?" Xephos stared at the horned head, black stone teeth bared.

"It probably died a very long time ago, the earth probably forced it up." Honeydew guessed. "I wonder if there's any more. . ?" he mused, scanning down the cliff wall. "Oh?" he exclaimed, staring away down the plateau, where sitting between the cliff and a hill there sat a wooden structure, jutting from the sand. "Oh! What's that?" he pointed along the right of the cliff to the tall house, it's walls curving neatly up to form a roof.

"What?" Xephos asked, noticing Honeydew. He followed his finger towards the building and gave a look of surprise. "What _is_ that?" he asked.

"I think it's a house." Honeydew said. "We could move Webley there, he might be more comfortable and better protected. There might even be supplies." he looked across at Xephos, who was still staring intently ahead. "What do you say? Check it out?" he asked.

"Let's just go see what is inside before we try to move Webley." Xephos said as they made down the plateau to the house. However as they made nearer, it became clear that it was not a house. "Is. . ? . . .Is that a boat?" Xephos said when they came closer. It was now clear that it was indeed a large ship, the aftcastle and sloping deck the only thing visible above the sand as it poked out, sloping backwards, the main mast jutting out of the sand before it, a tattered yet surprisingly bright and not sun-bleached flag coloured with three red, white, and blue stripes hanging limply from it's tip. "Is this the remains of a boat?" Xephos said, coming to the foot of the sunken vessel. He walked around the right side, staring up at the drum-like hull and battered rudder.

"Yeah it is." Honeydew said, perplexed. "It's just kind of half jutting out, isn't it?"

"But how did it get here?" Xephos asked. "It doesn't look that old, certainly not as old as the dragon fossil." he was about to suggest entering when there came the sound of a door slamming from around the front of the ship and suddenly a little man appeared at the foot of the buried balustrade. He wore a deep-necked shirt striped white and blue, a red naval neck-tie bleached by years of use tied about his neck, wiry black hair sprouting from his chest. Atop hair, curls of oily black, sat a deep blue beret, and he stood with his sailor's shoes set apart while he brandished a stout beam of wood. He gave a heavily accented growl and leaped forwards, holding his weapon high, curled moustache and goatee quivering.

"Get away from me ship, ye monsters of the sand!" he growled in a voice as wiry as his hair, bright eyes flashing fiercely.

"Woah woah woah!" Xephos jumped backwards at the small man's aggression. "We mean you no harm!" he yelled back, raising his hands, making sure to maintain some distance between the man and himself and Honeydew. The dwarf gave an angry huff.

"I'm not a monster, I'm a dwarf. How dare you." he frowned down at the bedraggled sailor.

"Stay back!" he yelled again, shaking his beam, which now seemed to be a long, very stale loaf of bread. "Or I'll 'it ya with mon baguette!"

"Calm the fuck down you crazy hermit." Honeydew said loud voice. "We said we mean you no harm. This is Xephos," he gestured impatiently to Xephos at his right. "and I am Honeydew, a dwarf of Khaz Modan."

"Seriously?" Xephos cried. "You're still trying to reinforce that rumor? They don't even know that Khaz Modan's legendary around here, you're not impressing anyone."

"My friend is rather excitable." Honeydew said evenly to the sailor, reaching into his pack, pulling out his emergency bottle of beer. "Here, take this. It's beer. I'll bet you haven't had this in a while." he tossed it at the man, who humble the catch but a did not let the bottle drop.

"What is this?" the man said, cautiously sniffing the contents, when his eyes widened. "Ale!? Zut alors! You are not the monsters after all!" he cried, taking a draught from the bottle. "Oh, is a bit warm, but better than no beer I suppose." he said thoughtfully, the first time he'd not shouted.

"See, Xephos? Not that hard to make friends." Honeydew smiled back at Xephos as he walked up to him.

"Don't let your guard down yet." Xephos said lowly.

"What is your name? I assume you have one?" Honeydew said, sounding more annoyed than diplomatic.

"My name?" the sailor exclaimed after another sip from the bottle. "Of course I have one! My name is Hubert´!" he announced, his accent molesting the name so it was pronounced with a silent "H" and "T". He continued to stare at them, prejudice lit in his eyes like he was staring at some vermin even though he'd admitted they did not seem like monsters. "But those goggles around your necks! You are Skylords? Pish!" he sneered. "_I, _am a _Shiplord."_ he declared with pride. Xephos did not recognise the title and was fairly certain Honeydew, who'd been rather at odds with the sea did not either. _Where could this man have come from? _he thought.

"_Shiplord?" _Honeydew said carefully. "Shiplord Hubert."

"Oui!" Hubert said, raising his chin. "And we Shiplords detest you Skylords, you who left the ways of the sea for your crazy flying contraptions."

"Yes we _are_ Skylords!" Xephos said angrily. "And you're being terribly rude, insulting us after we gave you drink." Hubert glowered, looking back at Honeydew, but making no move to give back the bottle.

"What I say I mean! But a dwarf is always a friend to the Shiplords. Even if he is as tall as a man!" he exclaimed. Honeydew beamed and nodded with approval, almost forgetting his ale was still not returned to him.

"I like you, Shiplord." Honeydew said. "Although it looks like your ship's in a bit of a state." Hubert barely glanced over his shoulder at the half buried schooner, he only gave a grumble of frustration.

Xephos was perplexed by the strangeness of the whole situation, a strange man claiming to be a Shiplord out in the middle of the desert, and even stranger was that his ship was here with him, sinking into the sand diagonally as though the front had sprung a leak and was submerging.

"Hubert- uh. . .Shiplord." Xephos added respectfully, aware that Honeydew's being a dwarf did not protect _him_ from the Shiplord's wrath. "How did you- How did you get here. . ?" he asked, looking along the horizon as he spoke, but there was no sign of The Wall. Hubert gave growl and spat.

"It happened days ago!" he growled. "I was just sailin' along, mindin' my own business when all of a sudden. . ._ whoosh!_ Me ship git swept up by a whirlpool out of nowhere." he frowned darkly and leaned back against the prow of his broken ship. "Ended up 'ere." he said simply.

"Oh dear." Honeydew said.

"Wait, but how?" Xephos asked. "How did the whirlpool bring you here?"

"I don't know." Hubert shrugged. "I was spinning around and then the water becomes air and we fall into the sand. I haven't left since." he continued to lean dejectedly against the boards of his boat, a glint of sadness in his eyes. Xephos suddenly remembered Webley, and had a thought that made him speak again.

"By any chance do you know anything about healing?" he said, trying not to sound abrupt. "We have a friend who is poorly." he explained.

"That's not good." Hubert looked back at him, eyes hard again. "I will see. Come." he said, gesturing for them to follow. He walked around to the front of the sloping deck, where the door to the aftcastle was hanging open. Taking a running start Hubert sprang up the sloping deck, reaching out and grabbing the doorframe and pulling himself into the room inside. Running up the slope of the deck Xephos followed him through the doorway and was surprised when the floor became flat. In the dark he stepped forwards, feet falling onto wooden boards hacked from their original bracings and repositioned to be parallel with the ground. Hubert stood near the back of the cabin, at the edge of a drop where the planks, there were seemingly not enough of them, stopped and dropped down into an emptiness that was the belly of the rest of the ship.

"You've been busy." said Honeydew as he pulled himself inside, an impressed look on his face at the sight of the Shiplord's handywork.

"One must remain busy, or his mind will find unimportant things to busy him with!" the small man said gruffly. He crossed over to a great sea-chest that was one of very few pieces of furniture in the cabin, the only other one of note being the pile of linen and blankets that would've been Hubert's bed once. He threw the lid open gruffly and began to look through it. "Do not stand too close together. I only built this floor with me in mind, if you fall through I won't be able to help you out." he commented. Xephos took a cautious step away from Honeydew and towards the back wall, where he expected the wood joinings would be stronger. Hubert spent several more moments going through the chest, searching for something, foreign curses leaping across the room periodically.

"Find what you're looking for?" asked Xephos. Hubert slammed the lid of the chest shut angrily and stood.

"Non!" he said. "I am sorry but I don't have anything that might heal your friend. I don't even know what is wrong with him!" he growled.

"He is very sick, I think it's mostly just exhaustion." Honeydew said, adding a swear a moment later. "If only we weren't in the desert, we might be able to rest him properly." he commented.

"Wait a moment," Hubert said not a second later, holding up a hand.

"What? Do you have something that may help him?" Xephos asked.

"I may." Hubert said, then suddenly bustled towards the door. Xephos and Honeydew followed him closely despite the groans of the floorboards in protest. Reaching the angled door Hubert reached to his left and grasped on the outside for a rope that hung down next to the doorway, leading up to the railing at the aft of the ship, now the highest point. "Before I crashed, I saw a vision," he said, grasping the rope and swinging out to the side of the doorway, planting both feet on the steep decking and pulling himself while walking towards the top of the ship. "a vision of heaven." he said as Xephos and Honeydew peered after him, Xephos sliding back to the sandy ground as he continued to climb the rope.

"What do you mean?" Honeydew asked, now beginning to question the man's sanity.

"An oasis in the desert, with loads of water and animals!" Hubert called down as he reached the top, perching on the end of the wooden balustrade where the rope he climbed was lashed. "I saw it from the sky, but I am not high enough here to see it." he said after standing and looking about in all directions. "Nope, not around here."

"You haven't gone looking for it?" Xephos asked.

"No." came his reply as Hubert leapt from the balustrade and slid down the deck's slope, the momentum carrying him to a run as he landed. "It is far to hot in the day and to dangerous at night for me out there." he sighed as he turned back to face them at the edge of the decking.

"So you just planned to stay here and starve?" Honeydew said critically.

"I guess I would've eventually left." Hubert shrugged. "I was stocked for a long sea voyage. I have enough to last me for a few weeks, months if a ration properly."

"Well I guess we'll have to find this oasis on our own." Honeydew said after a long moment in which he and Xephos had glanced only a moment at each other, and yet between them it was as though a conversation had been spoken.

"Wait, you mean to go look for it?" Hubert said, sounding shocked. "Please, I cannot go on my own! Take moi avec tu!" he cried almost pleading.

"What?" Xephos asked, the tongue he'd shifted into unknown to him.

"What did you say?" Honeydew asked, a similar tone of perplexion in his voice.

"Ah. . .I mean: Take me with you. Please." he clarified, the final word felt as hastily added as the floorboards in his cabin.

". . .Sure." Xephos said. "You got a good look from up there on the top of the ship, so we could probably make use of you."

"Yeah!" agreed Honeydew, making an approving nod. The Shiplord looked pleased, and as Xephos pondered the idea of an oasis out here, he remembered the map that they'd found in the case, the one that had not been there before with a tree sitting in a walled box.

"Wait a minute," Xephos said. "Honeydew, do you think the oasis could be the thing with the tree on the map we found?" he asked. The dwarf had a thoughtful look on his face as he nodded, then shrugged.

"It could be." he replied. "If it is we'll be able to follow the maps a lot better. But we won't know until we get there I suppose."

"Well we'd better get going if we want to find it before Webley gets too worried, or dies." Xephos said bluntly, irritatingly aware that the sun was rising higher and it's glare was growing harsher. "Let's go. Lead on, Shiplord." Xephos said to Hubert.

"I do not know the way!" Hubert exclaimed loudly. "I saw it from very high up, and I was spinning! It could be anywhere for miles around!" Honeydew and Xephos were silent for a moment, the dwarf exhaling loudly.

"Oh good." Xephos turned from the ship, staring up the high cliffs of sandstone to his left. "And the sun's getting higher." he growled.

"Where are we going to go, then?" Honeydew asked. "Do we move Webley here, to the ship?"

"No, there's no point moving him, he's as tired as he is." Xephos looked up the cliffs to the hills above. "We need to get to higher ground and look around, see where we are and where we're going to go. If we can find this oasis we can help Webley recover better."

"Getting him there may be a hassle all in itself." Honeydew remarked. "Do you still want to come with us, Shiplord?" he asked.

"Oui!"

". . .What does that mean?"

"Oh, ah. . .yes." Hubert said. "It means "yes"."

"Well you'd better go inside and get some equipment for traveling." Honeydew said.

"Bring some of that water you mentioned." Xephos added as Hubert scrabbled quickly back into the doorway of the aftcastle, seemingly desperate to see that they not leave without him. "We'll need as much of that as we can get." Hubert appeared back out of the doorway not a minute later, and waterskin over one shoulder and holding a wooden stave as a walking stick, a crude, mean spike through it's head.

"Is there a way up the cliffs nearby?" Honeydew asked.

"Oui- ah, yes." he corrected. "Just down the cliffs this way." he said, walking around the left side of his ship facing the cliff, he pointed down the plateau where the cliff lowered to rock hills not two-hundred yards away.

"Well we'd better get moving, it's only going to get hotter as the day goes on." Xephos said bleakly, the heat of their first day in the Sands recalled to him. He led the way down the cliffs, the point on the butt of his halberd leaving a third track beside his footprints. Hubert lagged behind, uneager to leave his ship, often glancing back wistfully as he plodded along.

"Don't drag the chain, Hubert!" Honeydew called back. The Shiplord turned around with an irritated expression, and put speed into his step, making a point to not glance back as he passed Honeydew, face hard and determined. They reached the foot of the hills at the edge of the cliff and began to climb the rock escarpment, making slow progress towards a jagged peak. The blindingly bright yet seemingly dark stare of the sun heated their backs and seared the rocks as they climbed, taking some short rest in the shade of tall boulders, the climb leaving them red and sweat-soaked when they reached the top of the tall hill. Behind them they looked down onto the plateau and over the edge of the cliff they saw the butt of the tallest balustrade, and far to the east Xephos believed he saw a tiny speck at the edge of the foothills where Webley lay in restless recovery. To the west there was no dunes nor sand, only hills and gullies of sandstone, the rock old and tall and hard. They could see no sign of walls nor trees, and the only place higher than where they stood was the tallest crest of a great arch, reaching out of the rocky mantle and spanning a mile to the nor-east with a thick stony arm.

"Does any of this look familiar to you, Hubert?" Honeydew asked, the sun on his back like a torch he'd leaned too close to.

"I don't know, it's all desert!" he said. "I am not mad! I know what I saw!" he commented as Xephos gave Honeydew a look. Honeydew sighed.

"Well, what now?" he asked loudly as he stepped forwards to the edge of a ledge, as though addressing the mountains for an answer to his question. "Can we just look around and get a vague sort of idea of where to go?" he said, another cry for help that fell silently on the worn ears of the desert.

"There's that arch." Xephos said, pointing nor-west to the nearest end of the dense curve. "That looks like a good landmark to head to. "It's taller than here, we might be able to get a better view from up there, and frankly I cannot see anything else that might be helpful. Just mountains."

"It might be cool in the shade under there." Honeydew mused.

"We're going on top of it." Xephos said, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed him. "Come on Hubert, there's some way between here and the arch and it's not going to get smaller if we stand here contemplating it."

"Oui. Come along monsieur Honeydew." the Shiplord added as he followed Xephos down the other side of the slope, still in shadow from the eastern rising sun. Honeydew gave a pant though his nose as he rolled his eyes, then followed hastily after the other two, both using their halberd and staff as walking sticks to navigate the rocky scree. They passed down into the gully between two hills, staying in the shadow of the one to the east as they followed the curving path of the valley towards the arch, it's crest visible just above the hilltops.

"This place is old." Honeydew observed as he picked up a loose stone. "And I mean, _really _ old. We must be in the dead center of the desert, or near it." he commented as they zig-zagged up towards a ridge, passing back into sweltering heat.

"That probably means we're in the right place." Xephos said. In his head, he was at odds with himself. Peculier would have known how to navigate this place, but now it was his job to. _Stick to the ridges and spurs to conserve energy, or stay out of the sunlight for as long as possible to keep us as cool as possible while we can?_ he thought. Atop the ridge he could see the awesome might of the arch ahead of them, between them another gully and more hills. "This place kind of reminds me of the mountains around Dwergholm." he said to Honeydew as he led them down the ridge and into the gully, and away from the angry eye of the sun.

"Yeah, I guess it does. But the mountains were never this hot even in the summer. Either that or I've gone soft." he gave a wry laugh. "Almost feels like we're home, eh Xephos?"

"Wait, I though you said you were from. . .uh. . .Kaaz Modin?" Hubert asked.

"He was lying." Xephos said quickly, not turning around as he led them forth, halberd scraping across the rocks. The way was long and winding through the passes below the high, sharp peaks of hills, drawn in darkness to the right and bathed in golden light to the left. The summits stood up like savage knives as they mounted crests and descended into more valleys, the edge of the shadows cast from their right slowly drawing closer towards them as the mass of the arch of sandstone drew nearer. Finally they came to it's foot, the hills around it rising up to merge into a single bending pillar, it's circumference enough to sit atop the foundations of Verigan's Hold and cover everything.

"That looks like quite a climb." Honeydew breathed, Xephos tirelessly leading them up a steep escarpment to the spur of a range, rising up to join into the arch, spanning before them like a huge serpent caught and frozen as it leaped from the ocean of sand. They stood below it and to it's right, the other end of it merging into the ground what they now could see was over a mile away, into other hilltops.

"Yeah, it is. And it's not going to get down if you're standing there." Xephos panted as he continued up the slope, zig-zagging in his route to conserve their energy. Honeydew groaned and followed behind Hubert, who seemed to be having no trouble with the landscape. They soon passed into the sunlight and were ever after in the hot court of the wrathful sun. They climbed for a while in agony, coveting the lost shade, yet the more they pressed on the further they grew accustomed to the heat, but still it erred them and drained their strength. Eventually Xephos led them over onto the hilltop below the arch, and he stared up at it, trying to reckon a path they could take up the colossal landmark. Yet as he stared up, Hubert and Honeydew stared ever down into the shadow of the behemoth.

"Right," Xephos spoke, stroking his goatee, once more growing disheveled and beard-like. "We should be able to make the ascent if we cross from here to the hills across to the west, directly behind the slope. I think from there we'll have the easiest path up, unless you two want to want to try rock climbing." he looked back at the two others and saw that which had fastened their attention, for below the archway at the foot of the range of hills they stood on the rock dropped away into a void, and yet below that void ebbed a green light, a green light to familiar to Honeydew and Xephos. Metal and Sentinel Blood twisted in an eldritch visage of chaos in the hollow beneath the great arch, a hollow stretching from one foot of the arch to another, the mutilated corpse of the Sentinel below only a fraction of what the rest of the Sands hid of the body, but the size itself was enough to make Xephos' blood turn to ice even in the heat, to imagine that a thing of such size might once had roamed the land. "Oh gods." he breathed.

"Jebus." Honeydew gasped lowly. "This certainly ain't an oasis, Xephos."

"It is the wrong shade of green!" Hubert spat. "What is this travesty?"

"Pray the gods never make you find out." Honeydew said lowly. He knew what Xephos was thinking of, it was the same thing he was thinking of. Peculier. The sight of the Blood sent anger through his veins and sadness tearing through his heart, and the heat of the sun above tempered the flames of emotions to a dull feeling he was not sure was really there or not, like a flicking light on the horizon that's there one moment and gone the next.

Hubert seemed fascinated by the sight before him.

"What in the world is it?" he said, using a hand to sever the sun's unending assault he stepped forward to peer down at the gaping chasm below them. As he stepped he set foot onto a large stone set into the steep hillside, but under his weight, the stone gave way under him and rolled down the hill, Hubert stumbling before going after it. Xephos tried to make a grab for him but the Shiplord was gone before he could come close to him, rolling down the hillside and ever onward towards the edge of the cliff into the lake of blistering Sentinel Blood.

"Help!" the man cried as he tumbled onwards, but Xephos and Honeydew stayed perched on the hilltop, staring wildly after him, for there was nothing that could be done.

"Come on, stop!" Honeydew said in a hiss, willing the Shiplord to slow or come to rest against one of the boulders that littered the slope. "Stop!" he yelled. Hubert rolled onwards, a smokescreen of dust thrown up in his wake, shielding him. Xephos and Honeydew heard a sudden cry from below and waited in agony as the dust cleared. The cloud slowly dispersed, and when it did they peered below to the sight of Hubert, his body lying up against a boulder ten yards from the edge of the massive crater. He moved a moment later, carefully clinging to the rock as he turned to stare up at Honeydew and Xephos peering at him from on high.

"Help me!" he called up to them. "I am alive!"

"Oh thank Jebus." Xephos breathed. "Just wait there Hubert! We're coming!" he called down the slope.

"How are we going to go about this?" Honeydew asked, looking down the rocky slope. "Hubert's probably not in good shape after rolling down there. And it sounds like he hit that boulder pretty hard."

"Just what we need, another casualty." Xephos grunted. "We'll have to be careful. If we slip we probably wont be caught by a boulder and will end up over the edge. We should go down in a zig-zag to be safe."

"Yeah, straight down is a bit risky." Honeydew agreed as Xephos began to descend, walking sharply right down the hillside, the shaft of his halberd on the downhill to support him. Honeydew glanced at the immediate drop-off into the bowl of Sentinel Blood, only yards past Hubert, who lay against the boulder, staring out over the edge. _It would be a long fall and then into the Blood, where he'd burn within seconds. Just like- No._ he though, cutting himself short, forcing himself to focus on the present task. Any distraction here could end in any one two or all of them over the edge. He went carefully after Xephos, their footsteps resting on rocks and avoiding loose sand and shale wherever they could. The passage down the slope was tedious and draining in the heat of late morning, Xephos leading Honeydew away to the right of Hubert and zig-zagging trepidatiously down the hillside, bringing them eventually parallel with the edge of the drop into the foul soup of putrid green heat and twisted metal. Now at level with Hubert they began walking left again towards him resting against the boulders near the edge. So near the rim of the drop there remained nought but loose sand and rubble, only the oldest and deepest of boulders having withstood the cataclysm that rent the tumor in the earth below them.

"Are you alright Hubert!?" Xephos called as they approached. The Shiplord was not looking out them, but was twisting his body where he sat, staring out over the huge cancerous pit to something beyond. "Hubert?" Xephos called again, coming to the boulder he leaned on. "How are you hurt?"

"Look! _Look!"_ Hubert said in a hiss, pointing out over the other side of the pit, paying no mind to Xephos. "That is it! That is what I saw!" he cried pointing madly. Xephos looked over to the other side of the void, searching for whatever Hubert had seen, when his eyes caught it, a square of high walls settled in a wide crest between two tall hills. From high upon the crest of the hill the view had been blocked by the massive girth of the arch that now spanned overhead.

"Well I'll be damned." Honeydew breathed. "Looks like we've found our oasis, though whether or not that is what it is remains to be seen."

"That is it. I am sure of it!" Hubert coughed and gave a wince of pain. He groaned. "My ribs are cracked. I hit this boulder very hard." Xephos carefully helped him up, allowing him to lean onto the mass of the boulder as he grimaced, half leaning on his staff, which he'd stubbornly refused to relinquish during his tumble.

"Well it might be what you say it is, but it's going to be a damn hard time getting you there." Xephos breathed. "We'll take the short route this time, straight up the slope. Honeydew, stay right behind Hubert incase he falls. Come on." he finished, taking a last glance at the turmultuos pit before facing up the steep hill and beginning the long trek to the top, Hubert groaning with every step and Honeydew virtually pushing him along. _A very damn hard time._ he made a sour face and pushed on.


	42. The Shadow of Israphel: Act 4: Chapter42

Chapter 42: The Oasis

It was approaching midday by the time Honeydew had successfully dragged Hubert to the top of the ridge he'd fallen from at the foot of the great natural arch. Xephos stood atop the rock height and stared south-west over the hills that rose up to form the thick bending pillar of the arch. The oasis that they'd seen from the bottom of the hillside at the edge of the precipice was now lost behind the bulk of the arch, and Xephos knew that they'd have pass around the side of the arch and across the adjoining hills before they could make a straight path for the walled block lying in a dell at the cusp of the great pit below the arch. Honeydew set Hubert down, away from the edge of the slope to rest, the Shiplord hissing as he was seated.

"How badly are you hurt?" Honeydew asked.

"Hurt? Pah! Is nothing." Hubert tried to say. "I am just tired from climbing all day. I need a few moments rest and then we can set out again." he unplugged his waterskin and took a long deep drink from it. Xephos looked away from the golden hills and crossed towards Honeydew.

"Do you think he'll be able to make it?" Xephos asked Honeydew, causing Hubert's eyes to light up with indignity.

"It's not really a question of if he can I think, but how long it will take." Honeydew speculated. "If we take easy enough routes we should be able to get him there before nightfall-"

"I have heard enough of this!" Hubert cried, his pride now sorely maimed. Keeping his face hard, he got to his feet without a display of pain. "I am not some lame mule to be carried about! I am a Shiplord! And we will make it to the oasis before the dusk has begun to paint the sky, see if we don't!" he took his beaked staff in hand and brazenly set off down the slope, heading for the next range of hills rising into the arch. "We will go around the arch, oui?" he announced, not bothering to correct himself in his effort to heal his pride. Xephos and Honeydew rushed after him.

"You don't need to prove anything by doing this, Hubert." Xephos said calmly as he he came alongside the stubborn little man, his beaked staff keeping time with Xephos' halberd. "We can stop at the top of the next hill if you need us to."

"Hmpf!" Hubert snorted. "Stop? Non! We keep going until we get to where we need to go! If I feel tired I will put my weight on my _bec de corbin."_ he added a flake more placidly, tapping the end of his staff, his _bec de corbin_, against his toe. Xephos let Hubert push ahead of him and fell back to Honeydew.

"Well, at least he's committed." the dwarf said.

Hubert made true of his promise, cresting the next range of hills without complaint or any sign of bother from his cracked ribs. They descended into the next valley over, coming to the slope of the next range, higher than the other two. The climb was hot and wearying, yet they pushed on to the summit, standing just outside the inky shadow of the emmence arch. From this new vantage they could see more than they ever had before, from the plains to the east and a high wall of clouds brooding on the distant horizon to the north, the only rupture in the matte blue sky. Across the desert they looked down to the other side of the mountains they stood atop, over the top of two more hills to a wide valley in the long, unending landscape of sharp peaks. Staring ahead they saw the square walls they'd seen from below the arch, still long miles away, but closer than it had seemed over the lake of roiling Sentinel Blood.

"Ah!" Hubert exclaimed at the sight of the speculated oasis. "Is this it?"

"I think so." Xephos stared down the mountainside. "I can't see any green, but it's something alright."

"No, the walls are high, and strong!" Hubert shook his head. "Trust me, green is inside."

"Well it's still a ways away." Honeydew glanced up at the sun. "I'd say it's just past midday. We'd better get a move on."

"Ah oui. I intend to make the best of my promise." Hubert grinned, a touch of pain in his eyes.

"Well come on then." Xephos said. "Drink up and let's head out." And so they all drank warm water from their skins and set off as fast as they would dare down the mountainside, their path a shallow wind between huge boulders and bluffs. The heat of the afternoon was on them in moments, but for a time they walked in the shade of the arch, and the sun did not bother them until they began to mount another rise, and they stepped into blistering heat. Despite that he was beginning to slow, Hubert refused to allow himself to become a burden, surging far ahead whenever Honeydew or Xephos made to support him. By the time they'd mounted the last range of hills above the wide valley the sun was beginning to dip in the sky, and the Shiplord was making every step with gritted teeth. In the valley at their feet the high walls of the oasis reached seventy yards into the air, built from chiseled sandstone and nearly half a mile long and wide. The descent into the bowl was easy, as the gradient was shallow and merciful to Hubert, who still stubbornly refused aid, in spite of every step sending a spike of agony through is ribs.

They soon came into the low floor of the valley, the red-yellow walls of the cliffs and hills all around, the lower curves of the sun touching the crest of the mountains to the west. They walked towards the monolith, eyeing the high crenels incase such a place was guarded, but they saw neither standards nor men atop those high walls, but they could see no door nor opening either even as they came nearer.

"Do we want to go straight in?" Honeydew said uncertainly as they stopped a quarter-mile away from the walls.

"It's supposed to be an oasis isn't it? So I guess we can just go in." Xephos said, still looking for a door or portal anywhere on the smooth surface.

"I don't know. I've got a bad feeling about this." Honeydew said lowly as they started forward again.

"What do you mean?" Xephos asked.

"Well, walled off places are never very good are they? There's a reason why there's a big wall around certain things."

"Yeah, to keep the trees and water safe I'd guess!" Xephos replied.

"Xephos, it's to keep something in, or to keep people out." Honeydew said darkly. "And out here in the desert I don't want to think about either what they could be protecting it from or what could be inside." he looked up as the huge walls began to fill their vision. "Either way it means trouble." No sooner than the words left his mouth that a voice carried across the desert of stones from somewhere upon the wall, rising like a reed whistling in the wind.

"Who's there, man? I can feel your energies!" said the voice. The three travelers started and stared up at the top of the wall, where standing atop the crenelations there stood a man. As soon as they heard the voice, Honeydew and Xephos knew who it would be, but that did not lessen their surprise when they looked up and saw the shrunken, bearded form of Swampy Bogbeard leaning over them on the wall.

"Oh my gods, Swampy!" Honeydew cried out in surprise and joy. "Gods, it's been a while."

"Who is this?" Hubert said, the grip around his beaked staff tightening.

"It's a friend of ours." Xephos said absently, still staring up at Swampy perching on the wall. "He's a druid, but we last saw him miles away. Swampy! It's us, Xephos and Honeydew!" Swampy stared down at them, too far away for them to see any expression, but he then spoke again, his tone different.

"What? Wait, what are you guys doing here? Unless that means. . . Hold on a moment!" he called down and disappeared from the top of the wall.

"He must be coming down." Xephos said.

"Yeah, but couldn't he fly? Oh shit, here he comes!" Honeydew yelled as From the top of the high wall Swampy took a running jump and sailed down towards them like he was suspended on ropes. The old man dressed in moss-like garments lighted barefoot on the rocky ground before them, Hubert recoiling at the sight of the the wild face and tangled hair of the druid.

"You're here! So that means you found the map!" Swampy said. "I had no idea it would lead you past my sanctuary, otherwise I might've tried to help you further."

"Yes, we found the map pieces." Honeydew nodded. "You were right about their locations." _Even if you were a little vague._ he thought.

"Of course I was! The Earth Mother can tell no lies!" Swampy looked over them with his absent looking eyes, lighting on Hubert for the first time. "It looks like the journey hasn't been kind to you, old Peculier." he said, stepping towards the recoiling Hubert. "A beard now, good. And shorter! Age has done bad things to you man."

"What is this madman talking about?" Hubert spat. "Calling me peculier!" Xephos stepped towards Swampy, his feet feeling heavy.

"This isn't Peculier, Swampy. This is Hubert, a shiplord." he said. "Peculier has died." he said after a pause, his delivery jarringly flat and emotionless. He felt guilt for the sadness he did not feel as he spoke the words, like he was offending their friend's memory.

"Really? That's terrible!" Swampy said, then suddenly seemed lost, eyes staring blankly ahead as he tottered slowly about to face the walls of the oasis again. "Wait. . .terrible, terrible, something terrible happened. . ." he said slowly and as though in a trance. Something in his head clicked and everything seemed to fall into place, for the crazed man gave a leap and pointed wildly at the walls. "Man this is the worst thing that ever happened!" he cried in a sudden mania.

"What?" Honeydew sighed. "Look Swampy, can you lead us to the entrance of the oasis? In fact if you just tell us where it is that'll do. We need to resupply and rest for the night. We need to get a friend here to recover his strength."

"That's just it man, there are no plants!" Swampy wailed. "It's all gone! This ancient grove of plants had been totally laid to ruin, man!"

"What? How!?" Xephos asked.

"Oui, how has this happened? I saw the oasis from above days ago and it looked alive to me!" Hubert said.

"I don't know, but I fear it's something beyond my powers. Something old and evil is at work in the world again. Something from the Ages of Steel and Light." Swampy said darkly.

"What are you talking about? Age of Steel and Light?" Xephos asked.

"The earth has a vaster and more potent memory than any library you'll ever find!" Swampy said. "But the plants are gone man. I'll show you!" he pointed a finger as browned and wizened as a stick at the wall, and a doorway formed there an instant later, growing from a tiny hole in the middle of the wall to a large gateway. Through it Xephos and Honeydew could see an expanse of dark ground. Swampy led them towards it doorway. "I was on a spirit journey to the impure world when you met me, I was trying to repair some of the damage that the creeds of man and dwarf and machine have caused. And when I returned, this is what I found!" Swampy led them into the grove behind the walls, but there was no grove about them that had seen leaves for a long time. They stood on a carpet of fine, dark ash, motes of it blowing in the breeze and around tall dark skeletons of trees, blackened by fire and bare of leaves, living or dead.

"It looked a lot greener from my ship." Hubert sighed.

"It's definitely not as nice as you described it as." Xephos agreed. "Well what now?" he asked as Swampy lamented.

"Oh man, this grove healing plants has been cultivated by my fellow druids for generations." he moaned. "Now it's gone, gone! My herbs are nearly dead, they need to be resurrected, man!"

"Hang on, hang on, healing herbs?" Xephos asked. "What can they do? Could they heal our friend? He is in a very bad way, dying of exhaustion. We had to leave him in a shelter on the other side of the mountains."

"Help him? Let me check!" Swampy exclaimed, producing a long pipe from within his beard, the bell still smoldering gently. He put the stem in his mouth and after a few short puff to reignite the herb he thumbed into the bell, he took a deep breath through the stem, his eyes growing lazy as the smoke seductively wafted from his nostrils. He let out a satisfied moan before he spoke, his voice thick with the veil of a dreamlike stupor. "Sure these can help your friend man, these herbs can med almost _anything."_

"I'll have what he's having." Honeydew said.

"Hmmm. . ." Swampy said, sounding thoughtful. "I've tried to revive the grove, but whenever I attempt to breath life back into the forest I get attacked by mobs, man! You guys can help me!" he said.

"You'll give us the healing herb if we help you?" Xephos asked.

"Yes!" Swampy answered.

"Honeydew?" Xephos asked.

"I'm good for a bit of a scrap."

"Hubert?"

"Oui."

"Sure then." Xephos turned back to Swampy. "Let's do it."

"Alright!" the druid dried, leaping into the air and hovering there for a second before he seemed to realise he was still airborne, and floated back to the ashen ground again. "Okay, follow me." he said, starting off between the dead trees. "I need to meditate at the Grand Tree, and then the woods will regrow, the grass will come back and the springs will flow again!" he wound between the trees excitedly as they three pursued him, Xephos uncomfortably making note of other, stranger footprints in the ash as the sun began to grow weak. They came alongside a deep, dry stream-bed, leading them away to the banks of a now dry lake, a huge tree truck, so thick eight men would be need to link hands to encircle it, sitting on the bank beside where the stream met the lake, it's roots cleverly woven into a bridge spanning the dry stream.

"Where are these mobs you talked about?" Xephos asked.

"They're clever man, they wait until I begin, and then they come out of the ashes." Swampy said in a low tone. "You'll need to protect me while I'm up in my tree. Just keep the monsters off me until I come down, okay guys?"

"We've got your back." Honeydew nodded.

"Okay, give me a second once I get up there, and be ready. They're quick, man!" Swampy cried as he gave a leap and was swept up into the air, soaring up into the high crown of the tall dead tree, his voice carrying down to them. "I will begin channeling the healing energies of the world! Don't worry! This should totally work!" he called, his voice sounding thick and slow. "Just keep those bad dudes off me, okay?"

"He just had another puff of that herb I'll bet." Honeydew grinned. "I wonder if I "get hurt" fending off monsters he'll give me some?"

"Best get ready. We don't know how many mobs are going to come at us." Xephos stabbed the pointed butt of his halberd into the ashen ground, stringing his bow and nocking an arrow as he scanned the trees. Honeydew leaned his mace across his shoulder as Hubert leaned up against the great tree's trunk. As they watched the trees cautiously they began to become aware of a dull humming, so low they felt it resonating through the ground and air before it was audible, and looking about they realised it came from Swampy, somewhere high up and unseen amongst the branches of the tree. The humming grew until it filled the air, and then did they begin to see things moving between the trees. Hubert moved off the tree and held his _bec de corbin_ by it's shaft like an axe as Honeydew stepped closer towards the tree. Xephos raised his bow, arrow half pulled back as the dark shapes flitted between the dead trunks.

"Oh gods, there's loads of 'em." Honeydew said lowly.

"Don't go into the trees, stay together." Xephos warned. A limp figure moved out from behind a trunk ahead of him in the woods, and pulling back the bowstring, Xephos sent the arrow into it's chest. "That's one, and there's plenty more." Xephos pulled another arrow from the row of five he'd stuck into the ground before him. More figures began to appear, and Honeydew sunk back, away from the tree line as Xephos sent carefully aimed arrows into the chests and heads of the mass of undead, coming now too fast for his arrows alone to hold back, the grey-skinned, slack-jawed zombies shambling out of the tree-line.

"Time to get busy!" Xephos said, nocking his penultimate arrow.

"Alright, come 'ere ya buggers!" Honeydew cried, loping forwards. The nearest zombie only seemed to notice him a moment before his overhead strike sent the heavy mace smashing into it's skull. Hubert was right behind him, jumping nimbly away from the grasping fingers of the zombies, swiftly planting the spike of his weapon between their eyes or hooking it behind their ankles and pulling them off balance and onto the ground while he dealt with another, returning to dispatch the grounded foe a moment later. Xephos loosed his final shot into the collarbone of an oncoming undead, smartly throwing his bow to the side and pulling his halberd from the ground. He tore open the stomach of the first zombie with the point of his weapon, bring the butt about and slamming it into the forehead of a second. He yanked it clean of the body and reset his footing as another rank emerged from the trees and stalked towards him.

"Fuir! Fuir!" Hubert cried as he whirled, tripping and felling zombies in a most exotic yet effective style. Honeydew's methods were less subtle but by no means less adequate as he heaved the mace to a fro, decimating the skulls of multiple foes with each swing. The dwarf walked through the masses like nothing could touch him, and indeed nothing seemed like it could, he now stood in the middle of the riverbed, slowly filling with a horde of undead, drawn to his loud cries of bloodlust. He did not notice the small amount of water that now trickled through the river, not even enough to rise above the soles of his boots.

Hubert however did notice. He swung his _bec de corbin_ into the temple of a zombie and wrentched it free, turning to watch Honeydew when he saw the riverbed was now darker than the banks. A moment later he heard a roar and looking down the dry bed he saw a sudden flare of white as a mass of water began to rush down the river, the froth of the water white like the manes of rearing horses. "The water!" he cried to Honeydew. "It is coming back!" The dwarf swung again, then seemed to hear the roar and over the heads of the zombies before him see the rushing torrent. He turned and ran madly for the banks, heading downstream as he did so. The wall of water hit the horde of undead in the river and swallowed them up, their bodies tumbling in the rolling flood. Hubert ran to the bank and held his weapon out as Honeydew ran, the water nearly on him. Instead of trying to climb the steep bank he jumped and wrapped his hand around the neck of the weapon, grasping tightly despite it being slick with blood. Hubert leaned backwards and pulled as hard as his body could, heaving Honeydew up and out of the river, the torrent catching his legs as he jumped, sending him off to one side as Hubert fell on his back. A zombie was almost fell upon Hubert when Xephos was above him, his halberd discarded and with sabre in hand. He severed the zombie's head with a sweep and pulled the shiplord to his feet as Honeydew got to his, the horde lessened but still staggering from the trees.

"The water's come back!" Honeydew cried, glancing over his shoulder as it rushed below the bridge and began to fill the lake, carrying the undead with it's current.

"We're not done yet." Xephos spat, covered in dark zombie blood. "Kill more stuff!" he cried, stepping forward to slice a zombie from shoulder to hip.

They surged against the mass like a trio of madmen, screaming in both madness and often in pain as their foes fell around them. Honeydew abruptly realised that the ground had since turned to grass, long and dark green, and as he slew another zombie he marveled to see not a speck of blood taint it.

The zombies grew less now, and they fell back to the tree, breath beleaguering them and arms arching as the sky turned dark, the moon the only light on their gory foray.

"_This is fucking exhausting." _Honeydew gasped. "I don't need this after a day trekking through the desert!"

"Just hold out a moment longer, they're nearly all gone." Xephos huffed, his halberd back in one hand and sabre in the other. He staggered forwards and shunted the point into the eye of a nearing zombie, grunting as he pulled it loose, his strength sapped.

"I cannot do this much longer." Hubert panted, giving a fatigued roar as he put the spike of his weapon into another foe. Honeydew steeled himself and charged forwards, barreling into two undead and crushing them under a sweep of his mace. He held his footing unsurely as he swallowed, staring blankly at the last lingering enemies before them, still shambling from the trees. Honeydew gave a start as he realised the trees were no longer bare, but were in bloom with the first buds of a new yield of leaves.

"The trees!" he cried. "They're blooming! He's nearly done!" the others gave a start too as they realised he was right, the small green shoots adorning the branches.

"Almost done. . ." Xephos sighed. "Come on! _Finish it!" _he gave a long cry as he charged forwards, swinging the head of his halberd about and into the head of one of the last zombies. He pulled it loose and hurled it like a spear into the chest of another, it falling to the ground with the shaft of the weapon pointing skyward. With only a dozen more mobs to go before the ordeal ended, the three fell upon them like beasts, all technique long since departed, and their acts became butcherwork. As the last creature fell to Hubert's _bec de corbin_ the trees all simeltaniously gave a shudder and then with a puff their once dead arms were adorned with leaves of the most joyous green, fully grown fruit already hanging from healthy boughs as Honeydew fell with a sigh into the cushion of the grass. Xephos stumbled to his erect halberd and leaned on it, still impaling the corpse of the slain zombie. Hubert fell against a tree, and abruptly Xephos was aware that the humming was still continuing. He turned and looked up into the high crown of the great tree Swampy had flown to, which he found surprisingly still dead. As he stared he heard a voice coming down from it, the first he'd heard of Swampy in the hour since their melee had masked his chanting.

"Planet Mother! You have humbled me this far with your kindness and your abilities! But now just one last part! My tree! Grow my tree!" he cried into the dark of the night. The night gave no answer and was still, but the earth paid heed to his call, and the tree was shook by a tremor. Hubert and Honeydew turned and watched as from the high branches leaves sprung into a thick leafy head atop the pillar of the emmence tree, completing the spell.

"Oh my gods." Honeydew breathed. "How. . .how the hell is he doing this?"

"It's Swampy, he has powers, actual powers! Not just flying and shit." Xephos gazed in awe up at the wide boughs spreading over them like a living umbrella. Swampy then appeared atop a thick branch and stepped from the wooden rafter, dropping from the heights of the tree to the soft green ground with hardly a thud.

"Swampy. . ." Honeydew sighed. "You are a legend."

"That was amazing." Xephos said as the druid stood and stared at them, an air of satisfaction emminating from him like heat from a fire.

"Thanks you guys! Now my ancient grove has been restored again. This is great!" he cried, beaming widely. He turned and gazed up at the tall tree towering as high as the walls, his breath catching. "She's a bodacious as ever." he said.

"This place, it is lovely." Hubert said, looking past the bridge and out into the lake that was beyond, longing making a tapestry of his features. "Monsieur, do you mind if I swim?" he said cautiously to Swampy. "It feels like too long since I have felt the embrace of water, and we are all filthy from defending you." Swampy took a moment to realise the short man was speaking to him, but he gave easy consent, assuring them that they did not need to fear undead below the surface.

"I would feel them if they were there." he said sagely. "Go and get that disgusting gore off you." he said, grimacing at the dark blood that covered their clothes. Hubert wasted no time, running with a new energy to the water's edge and leaping in, dropping his weapon and kicking off his shoes as he ran. Xephos and Honeydew threw off their packs and weapons and boots and followed him into the river, where he lay floating on his back, still fully garbed with his eyes closed in an expression of pure bliss. The water was cool, but not cold, and it's touch replenished Xephos' feeling of strength like nectar from the aether. They spent many long minutes floating in perfect, absolute idleness. Xephos could've fallen asleep if every time he relaxed too much his head didn't sink under the surface. Eventually they began to scrub the blood and gore from their clothes with handfuls of white sand, rubbing it from their faces and hair under the placid blue surface.

It was with reluctance that Honeydew and Xephos pulled themselves from the water, Hubert refusing to leave, merely floating lazily on the surface as they made for the bridge, still barefoot and sopping, to where Swampy sat in peace, legs crossed and eyes closed as he dreamily smoked on his pipe. The night was mild, in spite of Peculier's warnings about the cold of the desert after sundown, which did not seem to touch this place. The stars shone out there in the oasis brighter than anywhere Xephos had ever seen them shine before, the moon smiling gentle down on them, those four in their tiny paradise amid a terrain as hostile as any on earth.

Swampy did not show any sign of reckognising their approach, merely sitting quietly as though staring through closed eyes over the calm river, where the once dry bed was filled with dark water that reflected the astral light-show of the heavens as trees weeped over the edges at the banks. By Xephos' reckoning there was not a more lovely nor more peaceful place on the planet, and a great desire was born in him to never leave from this place where it seemed like sanctuary and asylum would last forever. But the fine fabric of such thoughts were set alight by his fiery resolve, for one thing that he knew above all others was that while their enemy was allowed to roam unchecked there would be nowhere that peace would last forever. A dull splashing came from as Hubert saw under the bridge at and easy and unworried pace, face dreamlike in the light of stars and moon.

"Look how happy he is." Honeydew smiled. "Oh bless him." he paused as they stood watching him come out the other side of the bridge, swimming out into the openness of the lake. Honeydew's voice became tight. "I think he's staying." he said.

"Yeah," Xephos agreed, somewhat sadly. "I don't suppose that we'll ever see him again."

"Someday, maybe." Honeydew said wanly. Swampy still had made no movement, still facing up-river in some kind of meditation, smoke wafting from his pipe up into the night.

"So, you're friend." he said quietly. Honeydew gave a jump at his voice, suspecting he was asleep. he and Xephos turned to him and saw he now sat with his eyes open, marvelous eyes alight with the fire of all the heavens, with purples and whites and blues and all others in between. His voice too was less harsh, sounding now as mellow as an old oak creaking in the wind. Maybe the herb in his pipe had effected him, maybe the sight of his grove restored had sobered him, or perhaps the thought that it all could vanish once more should the two people beside him fail lay heavy on his mind. He took another puff from his long pipe. "I nearly forgot, you know." he turned and looked up at them from where he sat.

"We'll have the herbs and a pipe and be on our way, out of your hair." Xephos said.

"So soon? Why rush?" Swampy said, gesturing out over the water with the stem of his pipe. "The desert is a much harsher place than this. Here you can rest, fill your belly with fruit from the trees and refill your waterskins. Ah, but you won't stay long. I can see that much." he chuckled. "No, I see darkness for you two." his voice turned darker than before. "Such darkness as this world has not seen in hundreds of years. So dark that in time it will even touch places as hale as this." his eyes narrowed, as though perceiving something in the dark. "Something is coming, something older and more menacing than you can imagine. Something under the desert. It will lay all to waste unless it is stopped." he gave a long exhale of smoke. "Your enemy is not who you think it is." he said slowly.

"What do you mean?" Xephos whispered, crouching next to Swampy, who maintained his gaze down the river. Swampy glanced at him, and he smiled.

"Oh, do not fret, man." he said. "This darkness my come upon you, but there is always light even when you cannot see it. Just remember that; always remember the times of light even in the most bad. That is what keeps us going isn't it? The memory of a better time, and the hope that such a time may come once more. When laughter and smiles flow as freely as the clear water and cool breeze. Remember those times and no darkness can blind you." he held out his other hand, a long elaborate pipe and a packet of green herbs in it. "Here is what you wanted. Take it, It'll heal you're friend right up." Xephos was stunned for a moment at the deep words from the man. Shakily he took the the reward and stood.

"Thanks." he said. "But we should get back to him as soon as we can. If you could show us the way out-"

"Oh, I cannot allow you to leave now." Swampy said mellowly.

"Oh _shit."_ Honeydew whispered hoarsely.

"It is far to cold in the desert at night, especially now that you are wet. You'll freeze solid, dudes. This place is warded but out there isn't. You'll need to stay the night." Swampy said. "I get the feeling he'll be staying for longer." he pointed his pipestem to the other side of the bridge where Hubert was just making his way towards the landing. "So long as he doesn't try to cut down any trees I'm okay with that."

"Hubert?" Honeydew said as they walked to meet him at the other end of the bridge.

"Friends, I wanted to thank you and say adieu." the shiplord said, taking his blue beret from his head, black curls wet and dripping. "I wish to stay here."

"We know Hubert." Xephos said. "Thank you for all your help. We couldn't have gotten here without you."

"Do you think you'll ever leave?" Honeydew asked. Hubert shrugged.

"Who can say? Some day, maybe. When I can say I know a safe way back to the outside world. But for now I am happy to only swim and laze on the shores."

"Well, good luck, Shiplord." Xephos said with a smile. "Just don't harm any of the trees on Swampy'll kick you out."

"I'll make sure not to." he grinned. "You are not bad for Skylords." he said with almost a hint of sadness in his gravelly voice. "I wish you all the luck in the world."

"You too Hubert. If we ever make it back from wherever we're heading we'll come and find you." Xephos said. "We're staying the night here, so it's not goodbye just yet, eh?"

"You should go and rest. I'm going to go and swim a while longer." just as they made to turn and head back across the bridge he stopped them. "And another thing, here." Hubert took off his soaked beret and held it out to Honeydew. "It may not seem like much but this is the mark of a Shiplord. If you ever need aid from one of my brothers, just show it to them and they will be obliged to assist you."

"Thanks Hubert." Honeydew took the beret, large fist squeezing some of the water from it as he held it. "Goodbye for now."

"Au revoir." the shiplord said, giving them a sharp salute as they turned and crossed back over the bridge. Swampy had once again assumed his position watching over the river, and did not stir as they passed, only spoke.

"When you leave in the morning, come to me and I will give you some of my animals to help you journey across the desert. They will be faster than going on foot."

"Animals?" Honeydew asked. "But there weren't any-"

"The earth mother gave more than just plants." Swampy said. "Go now, rest and sleep. You will need it."

"Thank you Swampy." Xephos said. He did not respond as they crossed back onto the grass at the foot of the bridge, walking through the grass to their belongings. The night was mild, and they were not for want of comfort as they laid down in the grass. Xephos wondered dully what would await them and what would come next. But something made him put that aside, and he fell into sleep with a smile, hoping beyond hope that by the time dawn came that all may be well.


	43. In Conclusion

In Conclusion.

Hey guys. I know I promised some of you that I was going to keep going from this point, but it looks like I'm going to have to break that promise. And I just want to thank you for standing by me through this, and thank you for how much you've helped me. Everything I have in the way of writing skills I have from this. I love you so much guys, and I'm so proud of you for sticking with this. To be honest, I'm a little nervous about what's going to happen now. But there won't be any time for me to be nervous anymore. I have serious studying to do, and I've gotten here just in time.

I want you to know that your dedication to reading this saved it's existence. It really did. And I want you people who've been with me from the start to know that I couldn't have done it without you, I really couldn't.

I wish I could have the time to finish this properly. But I'll look in on this from time to time okay? I love you guys. Thanks for your support. Look out for anything by me in a decade or so.

I gotta go now.

Thank you,

O.J van der Beek


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